Introducing PULP - 125 MB Puplet for older hardware

[zenfunk]

OK, I made some new improvements, so that a new version is justified. Having used Puppy as a solid base and being much more confident in remastering stuff I think a version bump to version 0.1 is warrantable.
The next release will even have a codename LOL:
"fruitshake"- .

The issues to be addressed in "fruitshake":

PULP will get an email programm.
Something like slypheed GTK1 should be sufficient. Also I don't have my email on my PULP computers I understand that people need email clients.

Office:
As one user found out Siag office has issues with fonts, also, handling of modern document formats is pretty bad. It will be replaced by an old version of Abiword. I probably will keep the Siag spreadsheet program, since I haven't found a good substitute in GTK 1.2 (old gnumeric anyone?).

Picture viewer:
I don't like the one used in PULP anymore, it doesn't have full screen. Will try out danpei and others, as always input from users is very welcome, remember that I focus on xlib or GTK 1.2 apps.

Emelfm will get a lot more filetypes, so usage is even easier.

Next thing I have in mind might sound a bit strange for PULP 0.1, but I decided to inject some BLING .
Also PULP was pretty fast, you can't escape the fact that it also was ugly as hell.

For the next release I'll try to get it to look a bit like OSX (kind of...)


OK, since you stopped laughing now, I'll explain myself: Almost all is done with some new icons for the taskbar and a more or less clever jwm configuration. Also, I'll use a newer version of jwm. The rounded window corners are just beautiful.
All this makes the RAM usage of JWM go up about 500 KB which is very moderate IMHO. What do you think? Of course, if you change back the configfiles all will be back to the older setup and only a tiny bit more RAM usage, due to the newer version of JWM.

I even found different GTK 1.2 engines and made/ downloaded some themes that don't suck. Some even look better than GTK2, and I kid you not.
If you want really polished applications- you can have them now. Unfortunately, as everything, this comes at a hefty price- loss of speed. Some GTK engines are worse than others, but generally the more beautiful the themes are, the slower they get. My Pentium2 handles some of the prettier ones quite well though.
If your machine can't handle it, then just go with the old themes and all is back to normal.

What do you think about the canges planned, anny issues not adressed? Your input is appreciated.

Cheers, Christian

[sullysat]

Christian,

This is really good news. I, for one, appreciate your dedication to this project.

It sounds like you're talking about using the old Abiword that ttuuxxx reworked. That should run very well. Another option might be Ted, which I've used before, but you'll still be stuck with rtf only and unable to open doc files.

Siag is the only spreadsheet I've been able to find that would fit your parameters, unless someone (ttuuxxx maybe?) has reworked gnumeric in the same way he reworked abiword.

Having a little bling is not a bad thing, but cpu/memory overhead is a critical issue (at least for the projects I'm looking at PULP for). Then again, as long as its easy to disable those things, its all good. My only issue is the solid black desktop. How would I change that to something like a dark blue or green or something?

Awesome job, again. Thanks!
Sully

[zenfunk]

It sounds like you're talking about using the old Abiword that ttuuxxx reworked. That should run very well. Another option might be Ted, which I've used before, but you'll still be stuck with rtf only and unable to open doc files.

I know Ted, and as you already mentioned it is rtf only.
And yes, I'll use tuxxes abiword. which is basically an early version that still happens to use GTK 1.2.

Siag is the only spreadsheet I've been able to find that would fit your parameters, unless someone (ttuuxxx maybe?) has reworked gnumeric in the same way he reworked abiword.

I just have to find an early GTK 1.2 gnumeric version. So far my search even for the source cod, has been rather fruitless. We'll see...

Having a little bling is not a bad thing, but cpu/memory overhead is a critical issue (at least for the projects I'm looking at PULP for). Then again, as long as its easy to disable those things, its all good. My only issue is the solid black desktop. How would I change that to something like a dark blue or green or something?

Disabling of the GTK themes works graphically via theme selector.
the other stuff involves renaming and editing config files. My programming abillities are near nil, so it has to be this way- sorry. I'll write some tutorials on how to change everything.

I wrote sometihing here on changing the background color:


http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 153#353153


Thanks for your input,
Christian

[recycler]

Hi, good to see that Pulp development is continuing. I managed to download Pulp from a rapidshare link (wordpress with pwget kept restarting after 6mb of the download) and am impressed by the concept and speed at which it runs. I coordinate a re-use project for older computers and personally have brought a couple of older laptops at auction recently to run puppy on. I spent a frustating time with a 200mhz Toshiba with 32mb ram - mainly graphics problems. Will have to try Pulp on it at some point. Will definitely be doing an install to my 300mhz toshiba portege (3110CT) which runs puppy 4.3.1 ok but is a bit slow. (BTW version 4.0 of puppy onwards included a toshiba laptop fix which can be manually added on to older puppy verisons.)

Looking forward to an updated version of pulp. My main concern was the lack of any backdrop ... win 98 on the 32mb machine runs well playing mp3s and can handle changing the backdrops with faststone viewer ... so it must be possible for linux to do something similar.

I agree with you that with 256 mb or more the latest official puppy release is your best bet. I have tried a lot of puppy versions (especially appreciating those from Ttuuxxx) but I have always come back to installing VLC, Mplayer and now Google Chrome on top of the latest puppy release.

Writing this on a very responsive Satellite Pro 4300 with 256 mb ram and 600 mhz processor - Puppy 4.3.1. Adding wine makes no noticible difference to the speed and I like Thunderbird as my email client.

Thanks for your work on Puppy!

[Colonel Panic]

I agree Siag is disappointing, I've used it (or tried to) in Vector Light but eventually gave up and installed Open Office.

Just a thought here; Deli Linux is another Linux distro aimed at old computers, and they managed to use both Abiword and Firefox in their previous release (7.1 Big). Maybe a look at their package list would be helpful here?

[zenfunk]

Looking forward to an updated version of pulp. My main concern was the lack of any backdrop ... win 98 on the 32mb machine runs well playing mp3s and can handle changing the backdrops with faststone viewer ... so it must be possible for linux to do something similar.

Hm, actually I planed on not including a background picture- to me it's just a waste of memory, BUT it will not be black anymore. Probably a lightweight third party app like feh can handle the task of providing a background picture. IMHO the background picture issue isn't that much of an issue in reality, because as soon as you are in X, the webbrowser covers most of the background anyways.

Writing this on a very responsive Satellite Pro 4300 with 256 mb ram and 600 mhz processor - Puppy 4.3.1. Adding wine makes no noticible difference to the speed and I like Thunderbird as my email client.

When working with Pentium IIIs stock puppy linux is all you need- so quick- ubuntu can only dream of this speeds.

I agree Siag is disappointing, I've used it (or tried to) in Vector Light but eventually gave up and installed Open Office.

Just a thought here; Deli Linux is another Linux distro aimed at old computers, and they managed to use both Abiword and Firefox in their previous release (7.1 Big). Maybe a look at their package list would be helpful here?

In the current development version I left out the writer portion of Siag office. The spreadsheet is still there- IMHO it is far from usable in a productive way, but it is an adequate spreadsheet- file viewer. If you have to do some serious calculating, you better install gnumeric from the repos. I managed to track down abiword 1.0.7 which is almost as fast as Siag, but has much better support for file formats people actually use.
Stay tuned,
Christian

[recycler]

yes background pic not such a problem and having a terminal 'button' means I didn't miss the icons too much. These pentium ii portege notepads have only usb1 though and so my workaround is to transfer files via my Ubuntu samaba server. Which was not possible in pulp without Pnethood (at least not possible in a way which I can easily understand and get working!).

Good to have firepup included. Look forward to seeing how the project involves.

[Puppyt]

Cheers zenfunk-

Just a quick suggestion, and probably waaaay out of the ballpark for any number of reasons-
What about DOS apps run from within Pulp to accommodate the Office functions? With the DosBox 0.7.3 pet being about 750Mb, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 616#326969, freeware/open-source apps such as Breeze http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/oldfav.html#breeze and others such as might be found from the "reimagery" site http://www.reimagery.com/fsfd/txtedit1.htm#wordproc. Of course, a number of DOS apps might be needed to make the addition of DosBox cost-effective in terms of distro size resources.

I've seen both Colonel Panic and DMcCunney feature on various DOS forums, just as they grace the Puppy forums - and as they haven't volunteered such a course previously (to my knowledge) there must be some convincing arguments against using a lite Puppy as a DOS portal. Perhaps it would be just too retrogressive - even MS Word 5.5 for DOS is now freeware...
Any thoughts?

[zenfunk]

Thanks for your suggestions, but you might be too late. I think I got most of the more common office file formats covered.

doc:
antiword: I included 2 scripts that open doc files as a pdf and as text- very convenient and faaast- no images though.
abiword: opens doc files, openoffice files and various other formats just fine- although it is a bit slower than the antiword solution above, it also gives the best results.

odt:
included the odt2txt tool which opens odt files in a text editor- just like the antiword scripts above it's very fast.

xls and openoffice spreadsheet format:
Can be viewed with Siag.

Siag also handles csv files and Lotus 123.


Using Puppy as a platform for DOS emulation:
Mostof the old DOS apps, although being freeware, they are not free software, so I will not include them in PULP because I fear copyright problems, if not now, then in the future.

Although dosbox etc. adds an extra layer of processor load to the system, it seems that it is not nearly as bad as wine or java. The old DOS apps are very lightweight also. So, in theory, a puppy that is run as a "launcher" for DOS programms seems reasonable even for older PCs. Because of the non free nature of most of the dos programms, they are not fit for including them in a puplet, but it might be a sensible way for someone to pursue in private.

On the other hand there is freedos which can run all those old dos programms nativelyin a free operating system, so you can spare your old machine all of the linux overhead. Of course you have to (re-?)learn DOS in the process .
My 2 cents,
Christian.

[Puppyt]

Thanks Christian, for again taking the trouble to respond in a well-considered way.
Sorry to interrupt your work with such reinventing-the-wheel hokum: I see that the "Pup4DOS" project may be soon moving into its 0.7 version with support for puppy4 - there doesn't seem to be much urgency there, however.
Your points against using non-GPL office software ("freeeware") in your release candidates is well made again (re earlier discussion in this thread on TextMaker), and puts the option of using DOS word processors like Breezy and ProText in their place - as the responsibility of the end-user.
The biggest drawback I see for retrogressing into DOS is that few, if any, office applications seem to supply translators for any proprietary formats post-2005 (including the DOS version of AntiWord). Ahhh, Progress.

Cheers!
-------------------------------
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it"
— Omar Khayyám (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

[zenfunk]

The biggest drawback I see for retrogressing into DOS is that few, if any, office applications seem to supply translators for any proprietary formats post-2005 (including the DOS version of AntiWord). Ahhh, Progress.

Well, then you are where you would be with the old Linux applications like Pathetic writer or Ted etc.

However, a freedos based distro would be wickedly fast though. It might very well fly on a 486.

BTW, isn't Pup4DOS just a bootloader that boots Puppy from DOS or Windows? Probably I'm missing something here.

Your Puppy DOS app launching distro is a bit like the Idea I once had- run a Mac 68K emulator inside Puppy and have a MacOS run inside of it (the older systems are freely downloadable from apple).

It kinda worked (not very fast though), but you will get copyright problems if you distribute it- so- bugger. Nevertheless, it was very cool to run System 7 on an old IBM Laptop. With a bit of effort the Puppy layer can be hidden very effectively to fool the bystanders- .

Cheer, Christian

PS: I burned the first iso of PULP 0.1 last night- now some more testing.....

[zenfunk]

Finally.....

http://rapidshare.com/files/351589378/PULP_0.1.iso.html

Unfortunately I just got rapidshare as a filehost, so if someone want's to mirror- please do so.
I'll try to write a release note tomorrow.
As always, please post bugs here.

Happy hacking,
Christian

BTW: all the applications below are GTK 1.2

[DMcCunney]

I've seen both Colonel Panic and DMcCunney feature on various DOS forums, just as they grace the Puppy forums - and as they haven't volunteered such a course previously (to my knowledge) there must be some convincing arguments against using a lite Puppy as a DOS portal. Perhaps it would be just too retrogressive - even MS Word 5.5 for DOS is now freeware...
Any thoughts?

I go on about DOS a bit because I go back far enough to have used DOS on a daily basis. I started with MS-DOS 2.11, and went on from there to 3.3 and then DOS 5.0. (I carefully skipped DOS 4.0... )

I still have and use a few old DOS programs, like Eric Meyer's VDE editor and Vern Buerg's LIST file browser, and have a virtual DOS environment under XP using Rex Conn's superb 4DOS command.com replacement. I also still regularly play several old DOS games, including DOS versions of Unix Larn and VMS Empire.

But while I'm comfortable at a DOS command line, and still fluent in an assortment of older DOS programs, I can't recommend DOS for something like this. The basic problem is the one you allude to. What, exactly, would you do with DOS programs run from Puppy? The answer, alas, is "not a lot".

DOS brings an assortment of baggage with it: 16 it applications, restriction to old 8+3 file names, a memory model that heavily restricts memory usage, and non-existent support for a number of current things. Most of the stuff you might want to work with would require a fair amount of massage to get into a form your DOS programs could work with, and more massage once you had to put them back into a form anything else would work with.

And many DOS apps are problematic because they were written when a program could assume it was the only thing running on the machine, and would do stuff like write directly to the hardware for performance. You can't make that assumption in a multi-tasking environment. (I just got a Linux build of an editor I like under DOS - TDE. When I ran it, it spiked the CPU. The maintainer confirmed my suspicions: it's polling the keyboard for input instead of waiting to detect an event. That was how you did things under DOS, and while the code is portable enough to build under Linux, it has some DOS specific quirks...)

If I wanted to try something like that, I'd look for Linux console mode applications to replace GUI apps. Back in the day, you used things like WordStar or WordPerfect for word processing, Lotus 1,2,3 or Quattro Pro for spreadsheets, and dBase III or IV for database. They were all console mode applications. The web didin't exist, nor did web browsers, and being online generally meant calling BBS systems via dial up modems. Things were console mode, as GUIs didn't exist, and PCs were single tasking, running one program at a time.

It you could get the applications, you could more or less replicate that, though it might be a case of multiple CLI apps, each on a separate console. But you ultimately founder because you need to deal with things like Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Adobe PDF files, and the applications that can do that are GUI based.

If by some chance that's not a requirement for you, you can go really light weight and drop the GUI entirely. Boot to a command line and do everything from there. Don't load X-windows and a window manager at all. The overhead of running X and the requirements of displaying GUI apps are the single biggest hurdle any machine trying to run Linux must jump. There are an assortment of tasks you can use that approach for, like a print server, file server, or firewall machine. But for most of what you'll want to do, X and a GUI, and GUI based apps are requirements.
______
Dennis

[Puppyt]

...I can't recommend DOS for something like this. The basic problem is the one you allude to. What, exactly, would you do with DOS programs run from Puppy? The answer, alas, is "not a lot".

DOS brings an assortment of baggage with it: 16 it applications, restriction to old 8+3 file names, a memory model that heavily restricts memory usage, and non-existent support for a number of current things. Most of the stuff you might want to work with would require a fair amount of massage...

Ah-ha- I guessed that you were the real Dennis McC. Many thanks indeed for such straightforward clarification on the issue of DOS - I had imagined that something a little "out of the box" might have helped in a lite puplet of any make (not just Pulp - apologies for hogging your thread, Christian). But no: you've made a very convincing argument for the negative, especially wrt the overhanging requirements of the X environment.
And while your recollections of the DOS universe brought a tear to my eye as I recalled the first computers to join our family (Osbourne 1 and Kaypro 10) and WordPerfect 4.1 - no mouse, no pull-down menus and just a template cut-out over the function keys for guidance - I see no reason to inflict such experiences on Gen Cloud.

Thanks again, DMcC - kuDOS

[zenfunk]

PULP 0.1 release notes:

PULP- the ultralight puplet is catered towards older computers with little
processing power (Pentium I or II) and low RAM (up to 128 MB).

For information on how the (moderate) speed gains over the allready quite fast Puppy Linux are achieved, please read the first post of this thread.

The current version is based on the previous (PULP 0.03).

It contains vast improvements in useability, document handling and bling.

Technical notes:
I found that GTK 1.2 apps are invariably faster than their GTK 2.0 counterparts. Unfortunately they are also very ugly to look at. This can be changed when different "theme engines" are being used. Some of these engines make the GTK 1.2 apps almost indistinguishable from GTK 2.0. Unfortunately they also make the applications slower.

You can play with the differnt GTK themes, just open MU's- GTK- Themechooser in the root menus first submenu ("Desktop").
The most bling would give you the AquaX theme- both for GTK 1.2 and 2.0 apps. If your machine can't handle it, leave AquaX for GTK 2.0 and choose Aqualight (for GTK1.2 only) instead. Still pretty, but a lot faster. If your machine is really slow, or you don't want the overhead introduced by the better looking GTK- theme- engines, then go with one of the original themes (e.g. Puppy- xp2).

The desktop panels in PULP 0.1 are arranged to look a bit like the operating system from a well known music vendor. IMHO the usability increases over the standard onepanelatthebottom- layout, but probably it is just a matter of getting used to something.

Applications:

Filemanager- Emelfm 0.92:
A fast GTK1.2 two pane filemanager. For instructions how to use look here:

http://flusslinie.wordpress.com/2009/06 ... ike-a-pro/

Picture viewer- GQview:
I hunted down an old, GTK 1.2 version of GQview with a thumbnailing system. It gives you the much needed previews for your photos, since the filemanager doesn't provide that.

Texteditor- GTKedit and Beaver:
GTKedit is just blazing fast. For a more complete editor (syntax highlighting etc.), I included an older version of beaver.

Webbrowser
Firefox 2.20
Compiled with the GTK 1.2 option- a bit faster than GTK 2.0 but still very slow

compared to...
Dillo:
fast, light, no bling, just what your old machine needs.

Email- Client- Sylpheed:
I found an older GTK 1.2 version of Sylpheed (now renamed Claws if I'm not mistaken), if you are used to Outlook or Thunderbird, the interface should look familiar.

Word processing- Abiword 1.0.7
The last Abiword with GTK 1.2- very fast start up time (compared to the new GTK 2.0 versions) and allready very feature rich.

Spreadsheet- SIAG
Old spreadsheet proggie, probably not very good for much productive work due to poor support of modern file formats, but for looking into the occational spreadsheet file it is just fine. If you need more then install Gnumeric (GTK 2.0- very slow on vintage computers) from the repository.

PDF viewer:
For pdf- viewing I included xpdf 3.1. renders not as nice as newer versions but is faster.

Console applications:
midnight commander- file manager
elinks- webbrowser
mp- texteditor
centerim- instant messaging, chat

[Puppyt]

Typing from Pulp.01 now -
very tight remaster, very crisp and sharp responses to everything I've tried with it - love it! I'll report back too when I've tried it on the older pentium-class hardware you mentioned earlier,

Congrats and Thanks, zenfunk!

[DMcCunney]

...I can't recommend DOS for something like this. The basic problem is the one you allude to. What, exactly, would you do with DOS programs run from Puppy? The answer, alas, is "not a lot".

DOS brings an assortment of baggage with it: 16 it applications, restriction to old 8+3 file names, a memory model that heavily restricts memory usage, and non-existent support for a number of current things. Most of the stuff you might want to work with would require a fair amount of massage...

Ah-ha- I guessed that you were the real Dennis McC.

I discovered there is another Dennis McCunney out there - apparently a cousin of some sort from a branch of the family I basically don't know at all - but he's not involved in computers or technology. So yeah, I'm the real DMcC...

Many thanks indeed for such straightforward clarification on the issue of DOS - I had imagined that something a little "out of the box" might have helped in a lite puplet of any make (not just Pulp - apologies for hogging your thread, Christian). But no: you've made a very convincing argument for the negative, especially wrt the overhanging requirements of the X environment.

The idea is sound - reduce weight by using command line console apps instead of GUI programs. But the DOS apps generally aren't suitable for the technical reasons mentioned, and applicable Linux CLI apps don't really exist.

And while your recollections of the DOS universe brought a tear to my eye as I recalled the first computers to join our family (Osbourne 1 and Kaypro 10) and WordPerfect 4.1 - no mouse, no pull-down menus and just a template cut-out over the function keys for guidance - I see no reason to inflict such experiences on Gen Cloud.

My first "home" computer was a Unix box -- an AT&T 3B1. It was part of AT&T's attempt to compete in the desktop market against the PC, back when AT&T was in the computer business. IT was a single user workstation based on a 10mhz Motorola 68010 CPU, with a bit mapped mono console screen and a GUI I still think is one of the best I've seen. (It did not use X-Windows.) It can boot and run AT&T Unix System V Release 2, a full multi-user, multi tasking OS, in one megabyte of memory, and perform useful work with acceptable performance. (Yes, you read that right. One megabyte of RAM, not one gigabyte...)

I compared it with my later 33mhz 386 struggling to run Windows 3.1, a pseudo-multitaking shell on top of a single-taking MS-DOS OS, in 8MB or RAM, looked in the direction of Redmond, WA, and said "What are you doing?"

My first PC was an old XT clone I upgraded with a 10mhz NEC V20 processor, Hercules graphics card, AST 6-Pak card with a meg of EMS TRAM, and two 20MB Seagate ST-225 hard drives. I had fun doing essentially what I'm doing with my Puppy machine - seeing what performance I can wring out of limited hardware. The icing on that cake was the MKS Toolkit, a suite of DOS programs that implemented all of the Unix utilities that made sense in a single tasking environment, including a very complete implementation of the Korn shell. Booted in full compatibility mode, you had to dig to see it wasn't a Unix box.

But the problems discussed will only become greater. I've been reasonably pleased with Puppy, but my expectations are low. There are limits to what I expect on the hardware I run Puppy on, and I recognize that patience is a virtue. For instance, it takes about 30 seconds to load and run Firefox 3.6, and performance is pokey when I do. Open Office takes longer. I'm stuck with it. I need the capabilities of both.

A poster elsewhere was railing about Google dropping support for Firefox 2.0 in Google Docs and Google sites, and felt Google was discriminating against dial up users. They weren't. They're discriminating against older browsers (including their own Chrome 3.0) that don't support current web standards, because much of what they are trying to do in Docs and Sites uses those standards, and won't work in browsers that don't support them.

I use Open Office rather than the faster and lighter AbiWord and Gnumeric products bundled with Puppy because I need to be able to handle current Microsoft Office files. OO can. Abi and Gnumeric can't.

As the computing environment evolves, there will be more hard decisions for Puppy fanciers. Internet usage is a major current issue, as there's a limit to just how small the internet apps can be and still do what people want. For instance, Dillo is a well regarded lightweight browser. Goof HTML, good CSS, no JavaScript. Oops. JavaScript support is a requirement for a large amount of what you might want to do while surfing. Witness also the issues in getting flash heavy sites to work in Puppy, like Youtube. Personally, I don't even try. My old Puppy box simply doesn't have the horsepower to do an acceptable job of rendering the video. I get a sequence of still pictures instead of smooth motion.

Puppy is a good way to extend the life of older hardware like what I run it on, but you have to be realistic about your expectations, and live with the fact that there will be things you can't do because you can't run the applications that will do it.

Thanks again, DMcC - kuDOS

You're welcome.
______
Dennis

[zenfunk]

The idea is sound - reduce weight by using command line console apps instead of GUI programs. But the DOS apps generally aren't suitable for the technical reasons mentioned, and applicable Linux CLI apps don't really exist.

You know kmandlas blog?
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/
Loads of tips on CLI apps.
So far the only thing not possible on the CLI IMHO is word processing (Yes, I know wordgrinder, I just don't think it'll cut it for me). One workaround would be to run an early MS word inside dosbox.

As the computing environment evolves, there will be more hard decisions for Puppy fanciers. Internet usage is a major current issue, as there's a limit to just how small the internet apps can be and still do what people want. For instance, Dillo is a well regarded lightweight browser. Goof HTML, good CSS, no JavaScript. Oops. JavaScript support is a requirement for a large amount of what you might want to do while surfing. Witness also the issues in getting flash heavy sites to work in Puppy, like Youtube. Personally, I don't even try. My old Puppy box simply doesn't have the horsepower to do an acceptable job of rendering the video. I get a sequence of still pictures instead of smooth motion.

Although firefox takes about 20 seconds to start, once it's up and running the speed is acceptable on my PII 300 MHz. Having 15 tabs open all the time is certainly a no go, but 4 or 5 are no problem. That's also a reason why firefox is kinda the default browser in PULP- it is feature rich and is kinda fast enough for my browsing needs. If I'd have a slower machine, I'd probably go for dillo more often.

You are right, I can't watch youtube inside firefox on my machine (about 2 FPS - LOL), but a plugin for downloading the video separately is included. So, I can watch most youtube videos with mplayer just fine.

Opening doc or odt files:
You can use abiword in pulp, takes more than 5 seconds on my machine. If you just want to have a quick glance, you can double click the file and it is converted to txt by antiword and automatically displayed in the text editor- about 2 seconds.

There are many ways to speed up processes- you just have to hack around the machines constraints a bit.
If you have to do your office stuff for your company all this is probably not enough, but for a hobby computer I don't see why your Pentium I or II should be obsolete. Also think about people that can't afford newer hardware. I think they deserve something like PULP which is IMHO a good compromise between a fully fledged Gnome desktop and a CLI distro.

Cheers, Christian

[DMcCunney]

The idea is sound - reduce weight by using command line console apps instead of GUI programs. But the DOS apps generally aren't suitable for the technical reasons mentioned, and applicable Linux CLI apps don't really exist.

You know kmandlas blog?
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/
Loads of tips on CLI apps.
So far the only thing not possible on the CLI IMHO is word processing (Yes, I know wordgrinder, I just don't think it'll cut it for me). One workaround would be to run an early MS word inside dosbox.

I wouldn't. I have early MS Word here, and it works. The problem is one I mentioned previously - I need to deal with current file formats. Early MS Word won't have a clue about current Office doc files, let alone the new XML based docx format. (MS makes changes in their underlying file formats with every new release. I wound up bringing in personal copies of Word and Excel at a former employer, because a remote office had bought and was using a newer version of Office then we had, and was sending us files we couldn't read...)

If I'm going for CLI word processing, I'll likely use SUE, the Simple Unix Editor. SUE is a Unix port in C of the VDE editor originally written in Assembler for CP/M systems by Eric Meyer. VDE was a clone of WordStar, but faster because it did things in one file with no overlays and edited entirely in RAM. It also had things WordStar did not get till later, like macros. Eric switched development to MS-DOS (and the DOS version is still maintained and supported, with a November 2009 1.96a release). He turned his Assembler source over to Carson Wilson, who continued to develop and enhance the CP/M version as ZDE. A chap named Bill Kuykendall hired Carson to do a Unix version. It's not an exact VDE clone, as some things in VDE have no Unix equivalents, but it maintains the basics including the WordStar command set. I have a Linux build that runs fine in a terminal window on Puppy.

I'd be more concerned with handling spreadsheets and Adobe PDFs.

As the computing environment evolves, there will be more hard decisions for Puppy fanciers. Internet usage is a major current issue, as there's a limit to just how small the internet apps can be and still do what people want. For instance, Dillo is a well regarded lightweight browser. Goof HTML, good CSS, no JavaScript. Oops. JavaScript support is a requirement for a large amount of what you might want to do while surfing. Witness also the issues in getting flash heavy sites to work in Puppy, like Youtube. Personally, I don't even try. My old Puppy box simply doesn't have the horsepower to do an acceptable job of rendering the video. I get a sequence of still pictures instead of smooth motion.

Although firefox takes about 20 seconds to start, once it's up and running the speed is acceptable on my PII 300 MHz. Having 15 tabs open all the time is certainly a no go, but 4 or 5 are no problem. That's also a reason why firefox is kinda the default browser in PULP- it is feature rich and is kinda fast enough for my browsing needs. If I'd have a slower machine, I'd probably go for dillo more often.

Which Firefox version? I use FF 3.6, and it takes about 30 seconds to load here, from a UDMA 4 HD using an ext4 filesystem. (It took 45 seconds to load on ext3.) Performance is sluggish but bearable. FF 3 had an assortment of memory leak bugs squashed in FF 3.5. FF 2 is too far behind the curve. Current web development efforts are focusing on things like HTML 5, CSS 3, and newer ECMAScript standards. Older browsers will increasingly be left behind, because they can't handle the newer standards.

Indeed, the development of the Internet is the biggest hurdle. Increasingly, machines are assumed to have a broadband Internet connection and run software that adheres to current standards. If either of those aren't true, the user will have an assortment of problems. If you run Puppy on low end gear, standards support is likely to bite, and lack of broadband may, too.

Dillo is a nice browser: small, light, and good at what it does. It's what it doesn't do, like JavaScript, that make it an emergency only choice for me.

You are right, I can't watch youtube inside firefox on my machine (about 2 FPS - LOL), but a plugin for downloading the video separately is included. So, I can watch most youtube videos with mplayer just fine.

If that works for you, great. My Puppy machine is not my primary system. The desktop is a 2ghz Pentium box with 4GB RAM, triple booting Win2K Pro, WinXP Pro, and Ubuntu 9.10. If I want to watch Youtube, I do it there, or possibly on the SOs XP Pro laptop.

The notebook running Puppy is a relatively small, light, travel machine, capable of doing the basics, like word processing, spreadsheets, ebook viewing, and email. It's not a multi-media media machine because it simply doesn't have the horsepower to do it well. I knew that going in, and don't care. That's not what I use it for.

Opening doc or odt files:
You can use abiword in pulp, takes more than 5 seconds on my machine. If you just want to have a quick glance, you can double click the file and it is converted to txt by antiword and automatically displayed in the text editor- about 2 seconds.

AbiWord does everything in RTF, converting as required. If RTF is suitable, fine. If you need to save your changes back to the original format, you may have issues.

There are many ways to speed up processes- you just have to hack around the machines constraints a bit.

Which I've been doing, as the opportunity allows.

If you have to do your office stuff for your company all this is probably not enough, but for a hobby computer I don't see why your Pentium I or II should be obsolete. Also think about people that can't afford newer hardware. I think they deserve something like PULP which is IMHO a good compromise between a fully fledged Gnome desktop and a CLI distro.

I largely concur. My Puppy box is a hobbyist machine, and is in part an experiment to see what performance I can wring out of older hardware without spending money on hardware upgrades.

And I'm aware of the folks who for whatever reason are stuck with older hardware. Puppy is an apt choice for them, as it can probably boot and run reasonably on obsolete machines. But depending upon what role it is expected to fill, some level of compromise will be required, and there will be things the user simply can't do.

Cheers, Christian

______
Dennis

[zenfunk]

The idea is sound - reduce weight by using command line console apps instead of GUI programs. But the DOS apps generally aren't suitable for the technical reasons mentioned, and applicable Linux CLI apps don't really exist.

You know kmandlas blog?
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/
Loads of tips on CLI apps.
So far the only thing not possible on the CLI IMHO is word processing (Yes, I know wordgrinder, I just don't think it'll cut it for me). One workaround would be to run an early MS word inside dosbox.

I wouldn't. I have early MS Word here, and it works. The problem is one I mentioned previously - I need to deal with current file formats. Early MS Word won't have a clue about current Office doc files, let alone the new XML based docx format. (MS makes changes in their underlying file formats with every new release. I wound up bringing in personal copies of Word and Excel at a former employer, because a remote office had bought and was using a newer version of Office then we had, and was sending us files we couldn't read...)

I'm aware of this problem. MS really wants you to upgrade don't they. I really love my openoffice formats.

If I'm going for CLI word processing, I'll likely use SUE, the Simple Unix Editor. SUE is a Unix port in C of the VDE editor originally written in Assembler for CP/M systems by Eric Meyer. VDE was a clone of WordStar, but faster because it did things in one file with no overlays and edited entirely in RAM. It also had things WordStar did not get till later, like macros. Eric switched development to MS-DOS (and the DOS version is still maintained and supported, with a November 2009 1.96a release). He turned his Assembler source over to Carson Wilson, who continued to develop and enhance the CP/M version as ZDE. A chap named Bill Kuykendall hired Carson to do a Unix version. It's not an exact VDE clone, as some things in VDE have no Unix equivalents, but it maintains the basics including the WordStar command set. I have a Linux build that runs fine in a terminal window on Puppy.

That's interesting, do you have a binary- pet or something? Is it free software by now?

I'd be more concerned with handling spreadsheets and Adobe PDFs.

Spreadsheets is almost a nonissue to me- as a hobbyist, I use spreadsheets not very often. For pdf viewing I can only think about an old xpdf (non CLI for sure) or a pdf2html tool.

As the computing environment evolves, there will be more hard decisions for Puppy fanciers. Internet usage is a major current issue, as there's a limit to just how small the internet apps can be and still do what people want. For instance, Dillo is a well regarded lightweight browser. Goof HTML, good CSS, no JavaScript. Oops. JavaScript support is a requirement for a large amount of what you might want to do while surfing. Witness also the issues in getting flash heavy sites to work in Puppy, like Youtube. Personally, I don't even try. My old Puppy box simply doesn't have the horsepower to do an acceptable job of rendering the video. I get a sequence of still pictures instead of smooth motion.

Although firefox takes about 20 seconds to start, once it's up and running the speed is acceptable on my PII 300 MHz. Having 15 tabs open all the time is certainly a no go, but 4 or 5 are no problem. That's also a reason why firefox is kinda the default browser in PULP- it is feature rich and is kinda fast enough for my browsing needs. If I'd have a slower machine, I'd probably go for dillo more often.

Which Firefox version? I use FF 3.6, and it takes about 30 seconds to load here, from a UDMA 4 HD using an ext4 filesystem. (It took 45 seconds to load on ext3.) Performance is sluggish but bearable. FF 3 had an assortment of memory leak bugs squashed in FF 3.5. FF 2 is too far behind the curve. Current web development efforts are focusing on things like HTML 5, CSS 3, and newer ECMAScript standards. Older browsers will increasingly be left behind, because they can't handle the newer standards.

Indeed, the development of the Internet is the biggest hurdle. Increasingly, machines are assumed to have a broadband Internet connection and run software that adheres to current standards. If either of those aren't true, the user will have an assortment of problems. If you run Puppy on low end gear, standards support is likely to bite, and lack of broadband may, too.

Dillo is a nice browser: small, light, and good at what it does. It's what it doesn't do, like JavaScript, that make it an emergency only choice for me.

True, but nevertheless I can look at most webpages in a firefox 2.20 just fine (to be frank, I can't think of a single one that doesn't render properly). In a couple of years this might be a completely different situation, but to get your info off the web, all the browsers included in PULP, Firefox 2.20, dillo and elinks, do very well- for now.

You are right, I can't watch youtube inside firefox on my machine (about 2 FPS - LOL), but a plugin for downloading the video separately is included. So, I can watch most youtube videos with mplayer just fine.

If that works for you, great. My Puppy machine is not my primary system. The desktop is a 2ghz Pentium box with 4GB RAM, triple booting Win2K Pro, WinXP Pro, and Ubuntu 9.10. If I want to watch Youtube, I do it there, or possibly on the SOs XP Pro laptop.

The notebook running Puppy is a relatively small, light, travel machine, capable of doing the basics, like word processing, spreadsheets, ebook viewing, and email. It's not a multi-media media machine because it simply doesn't have the horsepower to do it well. I knew that going in, and don't care. That's not what I use it for.

Same here, my main machine is a core2duo something running ubuntu which is the machine where I get most of the "serious" stuff done. The vintage PII Thinkpad subnotebook is my plaything where I develop PULP and use for traveling.

There are many ways to speed up processes- you just have to hack around the machines constraints a bit.

Which I've been doing, as the opportunity allows.

If you have to do your office stuff for your company all this is probably not enough, but for a hobby computer I don't see why your Pentium I or II should be obsolete. Also think about people that can't afford newer hardware. I think they deserve something like PULP which is IMHO a good compromise between a fully fledged Gnome desktop and a CLI distro.

I largely concur. My Puppy box is a hobbyist machine, and is in part an experiment to see what performance I can wring out of older hardware without spending money on hardware upgrades.

And I'm aware of the folks who for whatever reason are stuck with older hardware. Puppy is an apt choice for them, as it can probably boot and run reasonably on obsolete machines. But depending upon what role it is expected to fill, some level of compromise will be required, and there will be things the user simply can't do.

If your main goal for your old machine is pushing it to the limit, then you will love kmandlas blog- he is mostly an arch linux guy though. Nevertheless, very inspiring.

I completely agree that an old machine has it's limits somewhere, but when I show people PULP running on my Pentium II, I realize that the limits are not where most people think they are. We Puppy Linux users all know that for sure.

Christian