Why is Puppy so unstable?

[Bruce B]

WhoDo

It didn't seem possible to me either, that we could:

1) mount the NTFS host ro
2) then mount PUP001 rw and use it as rw

But that's how it was done, as far as I can honestly and accurately tell you.

I never had an NTFS, for this reason, I didn't personally study it.

If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make obvious sense to me either !

If you don't think that's how it was done, I wouldn't either !

------------------------

ALSO: Puppy wouldn't, couldn't write the pupsave file, called: PUP001

The NTFS user downloaded it as a zip package using Windows and extracted it in Windows to the NTFS partition.


Bruce

[silverojo]

The game, I assume, was compiled for Puppy, because I downloaded it as a .pup file from here:
http://puppyfiles.org/dotpupsde/dotpups/

Pup's are usually for series 3 and less, Some were make for the 4 series but not many. This could be your game issue, Puppy 3 series and less used gtk1 puppy 4+ uses gtk2, plus they have different glibc's, All the making for a unstable game if our using puppy 4+. Puppy 4.0+ mainly use 'pet' packages.
ttuuxxx

Yes, I know. I'm using Puppy 2.0, which is why I downloaded the .pup file, which was current when version 2 was the current Puppy. So that can't be the issue, since I'm using a game that was intended for use on Puppy 2.0.

version 3.01 of puppy linux OS was
very stable so is 4.12 puppy linux OS
now this is based on you wanting flash+games
on your machine

These are not recent games, BTW--the games in question were made for versions 1 and 2 of Puppy. They're just simple things like Shisen (xshisen), which is sort of like Mahjongg--just static tiles, no shooting space aliens or anything like that, LOL. Solitaire and all the other card games in Ace of Penguins work without a hitch, BTW.

*I also liked version 2.16 puppy linux OS
that was rock solid for me and is good on older hardware

Neither it nor version 3 would work with my sound card, so the versions I've been able to use are 2.0, Teenpup, and the current version (4.1, I think?).

set your monitor to this value ----->1024 x 768x16x16 renders faster

LOL, if I did that, I'd go blind. I can barely stand to use Firefox because the fonts in the program are tiny to the point of unreadable (and yes, I know you can enlarge the text of web sites, but enlarging the fonts within Firefox itself is a pain). I have a neurological problem (I'll skip the long explanation), that causes me to experience a great deal of pain when exposed to excessive eyestrain. I don't know if you've ever seen 1024x768 on a 15" monitor, but I'll describe it in two words: Instant migraine.

but your problem is in the browser memory management and the firefox I posted will fix that

But can I install a .pet package in Puppy v.2.0? If so, how? I'd love to give it a try.

you can't avoid shockwave/flash ads).

yes, you can
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10

I'll have to check that out.

One thing that IMHO needs to be discussed further in this thread is the fact that flash is problematic for a lot of Linux distros. It's not really a matter of, "do this tweak and everything will be fine". The Opera browser discussion board is filled with people complaining about problems with flash devouring their memory. Particularly the "pluginwrapper" file seems to be one of the culprits; indeed, when I use KP Manage Running Processes to see what's happened when Opera crashes, that will be one of the items that's still running/hanging.

I've found similar complaints on the Ubuntu boards, etc., and the general consensus is that Adobe simply hasn't bothered coming up with a decent version of Flash for those of us using Linux. However, those users never complained of their entire OS crashing, just the browsers they're using.

So it all boils down to this: For some reason, Puppy isn't managing the memory as well as it's supposed to, or you wouldn't get "no space left on device" messages when your little blue box is telling you that you've got space to spare. Either that, or that applet isn't reporting the actual amount of memory that's free. One of these two things isn't working right.

I'm going to try some of the tips I've gotten on this thread (and Big Bass, if you'd tell me how to install a .pet on my older Puppy, I'd love to try your version of FireFox). I appreciate the input, and I hope maybe one of these fixes will work.

If anybody else has ideas, please post them, too--sorry that my personal situation makes it so that I can't try all of them (like increasing screen resolution), but I'll definitely try what I can.

[Bruce B]

Silverojo,

Hoping my story may help, I don't know. Something to read anyway.

I started Linux circa 2000. Suffice it to say at that time any computer I used was < 2000

One of the first things I experienced was a loss of faith in hardware.

APM may be an acronym for Retarded Power Managment

DMA may mean Learn To Like Data Loss

LBA could mean you should have used the manufacturers EZ-BIOS program

Plug and Play is not for Linux then or now.


I suppose if W98SE is the OS on your computer, the computer may be of this era where I found it beneficial to not have all the potential features 'enabled'


Bruce

[silverojo]

One of the first things I experienced was a loss of faith in hardware.

APM may be an acronym for Retarded Power Managment

DMA may mean Learn To Like Data Loss

LBA could mean you should have used the manufacturers EZ-BIOS program

This stuff is all above my head, except that I've dealt with the BIOS on my machines before. Can you explain what APM, DMA, and LBA are? I tried Googling, but those are pretty common initials. I think APM is "Advanced Power Management", but the other two are Greek to me....

I suppose if W98SE is the OS on your computer, the computer may be of this era where I found it beneficial to not have all the potential features 'enabled'

Would doing this interfere with how Win98SE works?


Bruce[/quote]

[ttuuxxx]

One of the first things I experienced was a loss of faith in hardware.

APM may be an acronym for Retarded Power Managment

DMA may mean Learn To Like Data Loss

LBA could mean you should have used the manufacturers EZ-BIOS program

This stuff is all above my head, except that I've dealt with the BIOS on my machines before. Can you explain what APM, DMA, and LBA are? I tried Googling, but those are pretty common initials. I think APM is "Advanced Power Management", but the other two are Greek to me....

I suppose if W98SE is the OS on your computer, the computer may be of this era where I found it beneficial to not have all the potential features 'enabled'

Would doing this interfere with how Win98SE works?


Bruce

[/quote]

Here's the latest petget, might as well give it a try, I repackaged it as a tar.gz file. so just extract it and move the folders into the specified directories,
/usr/local/petget
/usr/sbin
/usr/share/applications
/usr/share/icons
ttuuxxx

[Bruce B]

Silverojo,

Good question.

If Windows 9x wakes up and finds itself on a different hardware setup, it may try and adjust itself. If it doesn't succeed that isn't good.

Backup %windir%\system.dat and %windir%\user.dat

This way you can put things back. But of course to have ability to put things back, you also have to know what changes you made in the BIOS setup.

Here's the deal:

You're having a wide range stability problem.

Darned if anyone has figured out what it is. I'm not saying I know. If Windows 98 is actually stable, that speaks well for your hardware.

I shared with you a story of what I used to do on older computers and still do on older computers. I do these things a matter of procedure. Not if I have problems, it gets done in the absence of problems.

Take a look at these (present time) kernel line arguments:

pmedia=idehd psubdir=dingo layerfs=aufs clock=pit apm=off acpi=off
ramdisk_size=32768 noapic rootflags=data=journal max_loop=64 nohotplug
loglevel=7 pfix=noram

You can see a tendency on my part to turn things off, even at the operating system level. I don't recommend my kernel line, but I will say, 'things are stable and I'd be surprised if my puppy crashed.'

Bruce

[disciple]

Sounds suspiciously like a hardware fault to me... one of those ones you'll probably never be able to track down
The fact that Win98 is stable doesn't necessarily mean the hardware is OK - it just means Win98 isn't doing anything that shows up the fault.

[Patriot]

Hmmm ...

For some reason, one of my clicks landed me here ...

I've noticed something that may help point out some facts about this "seemingly random crashes/hangs points to puppy instability" ... The specs under the OP signature indicates that his/her system is an AMD Duron based. Highly likely a PCchips/ECS manufactured one. The "1200D" & "892Mhz" seems to confirm it.

My past experience shows that Durons even at the lowest speeds does produce considerable amount of heat. Accumulated dust on the heatsink fans/fins and hardened thermal compound can easily increases this to undesirable level.

There's a high probability that the capacitors around the voltage regulators have degraded (dried up/bulging/leaked). This is a known fact that I have encountered and repaired numerous times (even on the best of boards) in the last several years (hmm, I've already lost count). Most of the time, capacitors replacement will restore system stability. In some cases, the vrm need replacements too.

I have done many tests on such afflicted systems. In many cases, win98 will boot and work for hours without issues. As soon as one tries to boot an NT type OS (NT4/W2k/XP), BSOD/kernel fault appears. This is also repeatable when booting any flavour of linux.

I recommend that the OP performs an internal hardware maintenance/inspection. If he/she is unable to, at least get a more knowledgeable person to do it. It is imperative to ensure that the capacitors are in working order since I believe that the hardware is at least several years of age by now. If left to itself in a degraded condition, eventually it will damage the regulators and everything will cease to function.


Rgds