(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi Mr. john biles, I just got registered after reading this thread to say thank you for your effort and give my impression both as a user and as a "puppy spreader".

As said in some previous posts, Legacy OS should be kept alive because we really need an OS that can bring back to life some REALLY old machines. I'm not talking about Pentium 4, I'm talking about Pentium III with not more than 384mb ram or even older machines.

In order to do that, I think that some "trimming" could be helpful: the best choice would be the one of offering apps that are as lightweight as possible, just like we can see in distros like Damn Small; also, I think that Legacy OS should take the place of DSL, which came back recently with a senseless RC version that didn't give to the user real updates.

This should be the moment for doing what they didn't, choosing old (but still good and working) apps that can help people to avoid buying a new computer instead of getting a better OS for their old machine.

For example, Firefox Bon Echo was great for just surfing online, but now is dead and unaccepted by major sites like Youtube; I'd just update it to a little bit earlier release instead of jumping to - example - FF v18.
Or instead, i'd choose another app, just like netsurf or midori.

Excuse me if i haven't been clear enough in explaining my POV, i hope you'll understand what i meant.

Keep up the good work, old computers and technicians from repair centers (like me) will always thank you.

M.

Hello slimhunter,
Dawn Small Linux development dried up when their main developer left to start Tiny Core Linux. My feeling with Dawn Small is by releasing a new so called RC those running it were hoping to attract some interest from programmers. Because as it stands they don't have the right knowledgeable lead programmer to carry them forward.

Now back to Legacy OS...

In order to do that, I think that some "trimming" could be helpful: the best choice would be the one of offering apps that are as lightweight as possible, just like we can see in distros like Damn Small; also, I think that Legacy OS should take the place of DSL, which came back recently with a senseless RC version that didn't give to the user real updates.

Legacy OS 2 will never be trimmed to cut it down to size. Just because it contains a large selection of Apps doesn't mean it won't run on old Pentium's or run slower. Extra Apps are only there for those who want to use them.

For example, Firefox Bon Echo was great for just surfing online, but now is dead and unaccepted by major sites like Youtube; I'd just update it to a little bit earlier release instead of jumping to - example - FF v18.
Or instead, i'd choose another app, just like netsurf or midori.

To keep Legacy OS 2 running well on old hardware I try and keep its base system locked back in 2007. I do this because every version update on average makes a package bigger and slower as developers try to add more features. While this is fantastic for those with new hardware it is of no use to Legacy OS 2 and those who want to use it.

For Web Browsing Opera has been a godsend as it can provide a modern Internet experience while still be able to run against these old system files. Firefox, Chrome, Netsurf and Midori require a newer system to run.

Legacy OS 2 comes with Opera 10 but for a better experience you need to install Opera 12 which you can download from here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=68499

Before you do anything have a read as there's a special way to install apps which once learnt is very easy to do.

An Update Pack is on the way but life commitments are preventing me from finishing it at the moment.

Glad to see that you've answered to my doubts

I just have to specify one more thing; you said "Legacy OS 2 will never be trimmed to cut it down to size."...well, that ain't what i meant ^_^
I just wanted to suggest the use of apps lighter in terms of system requirements, which doesn't mean that you have to opt for an app requiring less space on disk. That's all, i'll wait for your new update...whenever you want mate, thanks again

Hello slimhunter,
A close look at version numbers of most of the apps installed will find they aren't the bloated versions included in most Distro's. Lets look at Bodhi 2.2 32 bit version it's a 541mb size download with a handful of default apps. Legacy OS 2 as you know is a 698mb download. I cram a lot in those extra 157mb's.

If an app runs too slow even on 10 year old hardware it is either down graded to an earlier version that does or not included at all.

I think basically we're on the same page with this.

Also feel free to make any comments you like good or bad as it won't offend me.

Totally convinced by your answers and by the hope of another juicy update, I decided to install LegacyOS 4 Mini on another "brand new" computer (lol, P3 800mhz, 384mb sdram)...but for the first time it gave me some headaches: when it tries to load the SFS in ram, it goes in kernel panic (not syncing, out of memory) and i can't boot for installing puppy. I tried several times to boot with the argument "pfix=noram", but it looks like it's being ignored
Any suggestions?

Hello slimhunter,
On some computers this has been a long standing problem which originates from the creator of Puppy (Barry K) belief that Puppy would aways be under 256mb's in size. When Developers like me come a long and increase the size of the iso above 256mb's his script or file decides to try and load the sfs file in to ram that's not big enough anyway. In the past I've posted for advice on this which never ended with a solution except one!

If you can pull out some RAM so you only have 128mb's Legacy OS 4 Mini will run off the CD and allow a full Hard Drive install. I use this trick all the time. Once Legacy OS 4 Mini is installed, replace the RAM and away you go.

great, it worked like a charm!! now i'm cross testing with other puplets too and i'm really happy with the results...thanks so much mr. biles

i've got to suggest a really useful pet: minitube.

it's an app that lets you see youtube vids at good quality and from a destop interface without using flash. you'll be able to see videos without lag even in a crappy pc as the p3 800mhz i'm using right now. it it's already available for dpup exprimo and i've tried it in the past with a previous xubuntu 9.04 install.

check it out, it could be a killer app for this distro, it'll help you to fill the lack of many other distros for old PCs

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I've added Legacy OS 4 Mini to my Puppy page, so now both versions of Legacy OS are available there.

Thanks to John for all the hard work! It's a real gem and I appreciate your efforts.

Cheers,
Sully

Just to bump this; now that I'm back on my old computer, I decided to do a full install of OS4 to a clean partition. It worked well and looked great (especially with the Karamba sidebar) until I opened an old Open Office spreadsheet file in Gnumeric with Firefox still running. At this point my system froze and I had to "break" the display with Ctrl-Alt-Delete - after which I wasn't able to get XOrg back and had to revert to XVesa, which I dislike.

I'm using Puppy Deeper Thought for the time being, which I like anyway so it's not a disaster for me, but I'd still like to get the X Windows installation back properly in os4. Could someone please tell me how to do that?

Best,

CP .

An update; I'm posting from a live copy of Legacy OS4 now and it's working well so I'll probably do another full reinstall soon. It does seem to run "heavy" as Puppy derivatives go though; with nine tabs open in Firefox and no other apps running, the sidebar is showing between 495 and 498 MB of RAM being used out of a total of 512 MB and 732 MB of swap (out of a total of 1545 MB).

Hi CP, just a suggestion. I completely removed Karamba. That seemed to help. I hope to make it back to Legacy OS4 soon. Been trying to figure out the flash problems and working on some other things right now. But back to Karamba. For me, it was an unnecessary item. I would rather place my icons on the desktop. Probably because I don't have a wide screen monitor. Hope this helps, Rob

Hello Colonel Panic,
Testing on Pentium III based computers showed that the Karamba sidebar consumes about 6% of your available CPU power while say a 3Ghz Pentium 4 uses on 1% of CPU power. To disable the sidebar and stop it starting during bootup, unhide .xinitrc in root open it with geany and place a # at the start of the line /usr/bin/karamba & so it looks like this #/usr/bin/karamba & and save.

In truth I use Legacy OS 2 on my Pentium III computers as I find it more stable than Legacy OS 4 Mini. Legacy OS 2 is more battle ready for day to day use and that's why currently I'm working on an "Update Pack" for Legacy OS 2 and not 4.

Hello oligin10,
I've never experienced a problem with flash 11 in Legacy OS 4 mini. Even the current version 11.2 works. It's strange your experiencing problems with Flash?

Hi John, thanks for responding to this. I think my problems stem from updating browsers. I try to update my browsers to the latest each time. It has caused me problems with Legacy OS4. I know that's what is causing it. I will keep working on fixing what I have broken. On a side note, are you pretty much done with Legacy OS4? I thought I had read somewhere that you were going to concentrate on OS2. Thanks for all you have done and all you do, Rob.

oligin10 wrote:Hi John, thanks for responding to this. I think my problems stem from updating browsers. I try to update my browsers to the latest each time. It has caused me problems with Legacy OS4. I know that's what is causing it. I will keep working on fixing what I have broken. On a side note, are you pretty much done with Legacy OS4? I thought I had read somewhere that you were going to concentrate on OS2. Thanks for all you have done and all you do, Rob.

Have you tried a recent version of Opera? I find version 11.11 works just fine in Legacy OS4; there's a pet for that one. I can't vouch for Opera 12 as I haven't tried it in a 2 or 4 based Puppy yet.

oligin10 wrote:Hi CP, just a suggestion. I completely removed Karamba. That seemed to help. I hope to make it back to Legacy OS4 soon. Been trying to figure out the flash problems and working on some other things right now. But back to Karamba. For me, it was an unnecessary item. I would rather place my icons on the desktop. Probably because I don't have a wide screen monitor. Hope this helps, Rob

Thanks for the tip. It might well work but tbh I like Karamba a lot, in fact it's one of the main "draws" of John's Legacy distros for me so I'd only bin it if I absolutely had to..

john biles wrote:Hello Colonel Panic,
Testing on Pentium III based computers showed that the Karamba sidebar consumes about 6% of your available CPU power while say a 3Ghz Pentium 4 uses on 1% of CPU power.

To disable the sidebar and stop it starting during bootup, unhide .xinitrc in root open it with geany and place a # at the start of the line /usr/bin/karamba & so it looks like this #/usr/bin/karamba & and save.

Thanks for the info in each case.

john biles wrote:In truth I use Legacy OS 2 on my Pentium III computers as I find it more stable than Legacy OS 4 Mini. Legacy OS 2 is more battle ready for day to day use and that's why currently I'm working on an "Update Pack" for Legacy OS 2 and not 4.

Great, is it anything like ready for release yet? I think I might install Legacy 2 now that I'm back on my "old" computer again.

Hello Colonel Panic,
Changes at Work, giving my old car a makeover, raising a young family has slowed down the development of Legacy OS. The next release to version 2.1 will be an Update Pack under 100Mb not a 700mb iso. I can tell you that Opera 12.02 the last version that works with Legacy OS 2 is very stable and has been my main Web Browser for months. It links to a small QT4 library inside Opera's main directory. Unpacking the tar.gz takes a few minutes and your done. Visually I feel the update adds more polish.

You can try Opera 12 from here http://puppylinuxstuff.meownplanet.net/ ... epository/
user = puppy password = linux

just unzip tar.gz to / as per normal and reload menu.

Legacy OS 4 Mini will receive the same visual update when 2.1 is released with a tar.gz of its own. I tend to work on one version at a time so an update for Legacy OS 4 Mini isn't dead yet.

I hope internet connexion drivers will be updated . Legacy OS ins one of my prefered distros but i musk work with my old computer

Still running Mini on an old 733 Mhz/256 Mb ram P3.