How to tell if I have enough RAM to run Puppy?

[enrique]

I want to be clear, as some post including mine may confuse you. bigpup is correct.

883 MB RAM is enough RAM to run any Puppy version

And I did not test but I am pretty sure that you should be able to stream youtube in LOW Quality without any issue using lets say frienly TUI "youtube-viewer".

And I prove it that Mike Walsh portable palemoon can even let you do basic Social Media if you accept the very slow response, one tab at a time and watch your CPU load/temp. As soon as CPU get hot it will start throttling the speed.

But you need to not forget to add a swap partition.

So I seen most users here claim Dpup- Stretch7.5 is the way to go. Try that Dpup- Stretch7.5 and the portable browsers. Nothing better than your own test. Do not forget to have an extra swap partition of at least 1.6 GB. We will be waiting your response.

[Mike Walsh]

<snip>....as for the graphics
ATI Xpress 200M (64megs max) Shared....</snip>

@ cretsiah:-

Nowt wrong with that chip. I had the same one in my old Compaq tower that died just after Xmas this year; as reliable as they come, and gave a very good picture. The Phoenix 'Award' BIOS it came with would allow you to assign up to 128 MB of shared RAM, but then I did have 3 GB in the old girl.....

However, as Mikeb has said, this doesn't affect YouTube playability. My ancient Dell laptop, with a P4, 1.5 GB DDR1 & the Intel 'Extreme Graphics' chip, only has a maximum of 8 MB available to it, even after a BIOS upgrade.....and it can still play vids & YT quite acceptably, so long as you don't attempt silly resolutions.

Experiment, that's all I can say. There'll be a solution out there somewhere; trial and error will find it, sooner or later..!


Mike.

[Moose On The Loose]

In the area of how much RAM I made a change in my own personal version of 528 to make it work on my EEEPC-701. The init now has:

Code: Select all

 # Making required RAM size greater than 512K needed for copy
 # This is for a test
 # [ "$COPYCONTENDER" = "yes" ] && [ $RAMSIZE -gt 220000 ] && [ $RAMSIZE -gt $MINRAM2CPY ] && COPY2RAM="yes"
 [ "$COPYCONTENDER" = "yes" ] && [ $RAMSIZE -gt 620000 ] && [ $RAMSIZE -gt $MINRAM2CPY ] && COPY2RAM="yes"

Without this, Seamonkey would crash for lack of memory on trying to go into youtube. With it, I can watch a youtube video even on that very limited machine.
[/code]

[enrique]

... [ $RAMSIZE -gt 620000 ] ...

Wao we are now on initrd code. 1rs wonder what code we have today in woofce.

1) But in any case did we have or not a boot code option that reads "pfix=noram" & "pfix=ram" for that?

2) If cretsiah in fact have 702 mb RAM that is aprox 736100. 736100 is bigger than 620000. I guess in your case 512MB or "536870" was smaller than 620000.

To be honest this is way out of my head as we will have to study what is in the initrd of Puppy he is using.

Now Moose On The Loose I thank you for the remind. As I see my self doing 2 more test. One with Dpup- Stretch7.5 & another using my Lupu528 and pfix=noram, to allow maximum ram for the browser. Still I think sites like youtube in fact overwhelm the CPU with the java/html5 script. It is to much work for a single core 32bit 1.X GZ CPU.

[cretsiah]

ok so I got

Puppy 2.14X running from HHD (after booting CD). only minor issue is need to press function key to use right hand side of keyboard using us keyboard layout

but Dpup-stretch 7.5 (july one forum thread) gives me hell this is with normal cd boot and using pfix=nocopy
errors:
- vmalloc_lock_slowpath +0*5a/0*d0
- kthread +0*94/0*b0
- kthread_worker (cant remeber string)
- bad_area_nosemaphore +0*f/0*20

those are the ones i bothered to write down
plus about 5 lines of code

Code: c3 8d 74 26 00 64 a1 10 f7 c3 c1 8b 80 7c 02 00 00 blah blah blah

have no idea what this all means, maybe you do.

[cretsiah]

Fair bit of manual stuffing around BBUUTTT

currently able to boot

- Puppy 2.14R
- Puppy 2.14X (has right hand side keyboard issues because of function key)
- FireHydrant 3.01 Retro
- Puppy 431
- Puduan 6 wmx alpha 1 (but french throws me off because i dont speak it)
- Puduan 7 a1-r5495 ( i think thats the right number)
- Slacko 6.3.2 (32-bit)

If you want a copy of the menu.lst I will try to post that tomorrow

havent tested the net connection on any except 1 (puppy2.14X) with an ethernet cable there is no wifi on this machine.

[enrique]

cretsiah
Never give up. There are PC that have a bad aptitude. Is a mater of finding the proper kernel setup. But it is easier to keep trying different Puppy's until you get close to what you need.

Dpup-stretch 7.5 is been advertise to very nice on old PC. Now I can only say just make sure it is 32bit and and read NONEPAE or does not have the PAE in title. Hooping some one jump and tell you a direct link Dpup-stretch 7.5

I never try Puppy 2.14X I will find it too. But 2.14 suggest a very old one. Better trying 4, 5 series. My very 1rst Puppy was Lupu528 and it does really nice on my old Satellite A45.

EDit: Upss seems you posted again before me.

[cretsiah]

@enrique I tried to put 2.17.1_seamonkey on there but it had a hissy fit about drive to large or something lol

the Dpup-stretch was the 32-bit option (at least as i understood it) but it just went absolutely haywire.

Im gonna look at this

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=116116

cos i have some ideas but i would be jumping in the deep end without a clue lol

[foxpup]

very nice cretsiah!

Ethernet should always be good.

If you are still interested in dPupStretch from radky, it is here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112125
Take the 4.1.48 kernel and you may need the fdrv, or not.

But I agree with enrique, try until you find something to your liking.
Puppy is a universe.

Slacko6.3.2 is already a fairly modern Puppy and if it runs well, it is very solid.
You may be surprised how recent a Puppy you still can use on this machine.

Just one thing good to know: does the CPU support SSE2, maybe only SSE?
Look in /proc/cpuinfo. It should be in the flags line.
There are a lot of programs that want SSE2

[Moose On The Loose]

... [ $RAMSIZE -gt 620000 ] ...

Wao we are now on initrd code. 1rs wonder what code we have today in woofce.

1) But in any case did we have or not a boot code option that reads "pfix=noram" & "pfix=ram" for that?

Yes, but that means it has to be done manually. I run the same thing on multiple machines and want it to not need custom interactions to work on each.

2) If cretsiah in fact have 702 mb RAM that is aprox 736100. 736100 is bigger than 620000. I guess in your case 512MB or "536870" was smaller than 620000.

I don't have the option of randomly varying the amount of RAM so I went with just changing the 1st digit as the 1st step of my experiment and then stopped there. I needed to test to see that seamonkey would work.

Still I think sites like youtube in fact overwhelm the CPU with the java/html5 script. It is to much work for a single core 32bit 1.X GZ CPU.

I have thought of making the script for the web browser pop up a dialog saying

"This is going to be SLOW and seamonkey may complain about a script not finishing quickly. Get your self a nice cup of coffee, perhaps a good book to read and tell it to continue when it says that"

[enrique]

cretsiah

As you see we are here to help. I see you have a list currently able to boot. Nice. Now all will depend on what is the use you will give to your PC. If you are going to do some Browsing on Social/Multimedia you may need to stay on the more or less recent Puppys. To old and to little you can do.

Regards hardware. See if you use a very old Puppy then you need to follow rules of that time. Yes USB had to be small I guess not bigger than 16GB. Well for sure no 32GB. I do not recall clear but in the beginning I think 4GB was the limit!!. And you may not use any of the recent format. So try to stick to FAT32 and EXT2 only on very old.

Normally I give this next script for people with hardware problems. But Since we are here to learn. Download the attached script. Untar using Uextract or similar. You run it by ./enrique_systeminfo.sh It will create systeminfo-report.txt and a tar and more smaller systeminfo-report.txt.tar.xz.tar.

There you will find ALL sort of information of your Machine. Open in Geany and serach for:

uname -a => Kernel information
PROC DEVICES => CPU
/proc/meminfo => Memory

etc etc.


enrique_systeminfo.sh.tar

[cretsiah]

OK so could get

DPup Stretch 7.5 July 2019 booted up (sort of frugal)

with these files un the folder

- vmlinuz
- initrd.gz
- splash.png
- windows installer
- Help
- vesamenu.32
- adrv_stretch_7.5.sfs
- fdrv_stretch_7.5.sfs
- puppy_stretch_7.5.sfs

(may need to add the lib firmware from gyro (linux_firmware_20200531.sfs)
will do that after this post to see if it fixes the muted volume control which i cant unmute.

HOWEVER

in having done this Slacko 6.3.2 now has the previous DPup_Stretch errors listed earlier.
so now Slacko_6.3.2 is not bootable

Im hoping this will help the building team of these.

[foxpup]

HOWEVER

in having done this Slacko 6.3.2 now has the previous DPup_Stretch errors listed earlier.
so now Slacko_6.3.2 is not bootable

Im hoping this will help the building team of these.

I hope this is not a problem with failing RAM.

[cretsiah]

@foxpup

Could be the original SATA Drive had failed (160gig sata spindal based drive)
it is pretty old
temp reading in a couple of the puppies (cant remember which ones sorry) are saying 53 degrees at idle.

if you want some real fun

this is how I got them on there

- using puppy 2.14R or 2.14X transfered files into indivual files on hard drive.

- adding a somewhat convoluted kernel / pmedia thingy (think this came from ttuuxxx's 2.14X

hhd is formatted with ext3, and has a 2.5gig swap

I have posted links at Slacko and Dpup-Stretch to look at this thread

[cretsiah]

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Sun Jun 7 11:43:54 2020
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.4824'. You can restore it like this.
# dd if=mbr.sda.4824 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

# Start GRUB global section
timeout 30
#color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Linux on (/dev/sda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal
#
title Puppy_Linux_214X_Frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /puppy214X/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=puppy214X
initrd /puppy214X/initrd.gz
#
title Puppy_Linux_FireHydrant_301_Retro
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /FireHydrant_301_Retro/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=FireHydrant_301_Retro
initrd /FireHydrant_301_Retro/initrd.gz
#
title Puppy_Linux_214R_Frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /puppy214R/vmlinuz2.14r root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=puppy214R
initrd /puppy214R/initrd.gz2.14r
#
#
title Puppy_Linux_puppy_2.17.1_nolzma_seamonkey_Frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /puppy_2.17.1_nolzma_seamonkey/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=puppy_2.17.1_nolzma_seamonkey
initrd /puppy_2.17.1_nolzma_seamonkey/initrd.gz
#
title Puppy_Linux_Puduan_6_wmx_Alpha_1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /Puduan_6_wmx_Alpha_1/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=Puduan_6_wmx_Alpha_1
initrd /Puduan_6_wmx_Alpha_1/initrd.gz
#
title Puppy_Linux_Puduan_7_a1_r5495
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /Puduan_7_a1_r5495/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=Puduan_7_a1_r5495
initrd /Puduan_7_a1_r5495/initrd.gz
#
title Puppy_Linux_Puppy_431
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /Puppy_431/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=Puppy_431
initrd /Puppy_431/initrd.gz
#
title Puppy_Linux_Slacko_6.3.2
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /Slacko_6.3.2/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=Slacko_6.3.2
initrd /Slacko_6.3.2/initrd.gz
#
#
title Puppy_Linux_DPup_Stretch_7.5_July_2019
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /DPup_Stretch_7.5_July_2019/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=DPup_Stretch_7.5_July_2019
initrd /DPup_Stretch_7.5_July_2019/initrd.gz
#
# Linux bootable partition config ends
title --- For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title --- For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/grub.txt'
root (hd0)

[foxpup]

I would add pfix=fsck,nocopy to the kernel lines.
fsck will keep the filesystem 'clean'.
with nocopy Puppy is not loaded into RAM, as it normally tries
this will make it easier on RAM usage

[cretsiah]

@foxpup

where exactly on the line do i put those flags? pfix= nocopy,fsck

I had thought about changing the bigger pups such as Dpup, slacko, puduan
from
root=/dev/ram0
to
root= /dev/sda1/folderX (folderX = specific puppy )

[bigpup]

where exactly on the line do i put those flags? pfix= nocopy,fsck

At the end of the kernel line.

It is:
pfix=fsck,nocopy

Exampe:

Code: Select all

kernel /Slacko_6.3.2/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 pmedia=satahd psubdir=Slacko_6.3.2 pfix=fsck,nocopy

Watch out about spaces.
There is a space between each command, but no spaces in the command.

[foxpup]

I had thought about changing the bigger pups such as Dpup, slacko, puduan
from
root=/dev/ram0
to
root= /dev/sda1/folderX (folderX = specific puppy )

I never use root=
not for frugal installs, and I always install frugal mode
I thought it was something for full installs
but I do not know what it does
maybe your suggestion moves part of the startup procedure from ram to hdd?
I don't know if that is wise

you could consider to recompile a smaller kernel, just for your machine
and maybe remove unneeded kernel modules and firmware, or some of it
you can also make your main sfs slimmer by removing the programs you do not use
may all help a little
you can 'live in the command line', it is not so bad at all

It is:
pfix=fsck,nocopy

you mean the order of fsck and nocopy is important?

[gyro]

FYI

"root=/dev/ram0":
The "init" script for Puppy frugal installs does not use any "root=" boot parameter, so it should do nothing.

"pfix=fsck,nocopy":
The order of "pfix=" parameters does not matter.
But if you are using a "savefolder" I would recommend, "pfix=fsckp,nocopy".
"pfix=fsck" does an fsck of the ext filesystem inside a "savefile".
"pfix=fsckp" does an fsck of the partition that contains the "savefolder".
if you are not sure, or paranoid, you can use "pfix=fsck,fsckp,nocopy".

I also recommend using ext4 partitions on a HD because it's fsck is always fast.

gyro