Vanilla OS v2 intends to be EASY for ALL users and PCs

[amethyst]

@amethyst :-

Has the thought ever occurred to really make a big, fat (frugal) Puppy with all the bells and whistles one finds in the big distributions (plus of course the stuff that has been developed specifically for Puppy over the years).

Um.....correct me if I'm wrong, here, but I thought that this was exactly what csipesz has been doing for years with his "super-fat" Puppies? It's hardly a new idea, surely?

Do I detect a wee bit of sarcasm here, Nick? (No offence intended, mate, but I know you like keepin' ya Pups on the small side, don'tcha? )

Mike.

Well, not really. Maybe the time has come to cater for those with old machines (like me who generally just runs the basics) AND those who want the spanking new stuff for their ultra hot new machines. I mean, let's be honest, if you have the most powerful machine since the big bang, wouldn't you want to make use of it to the fullest? I understand that and appreciate it. I think both paths can be catered for with Puppy. Now, it's easy to say "but just use the standard addition and add to" but the fact of the matter is that new users will probably want the lock, stock and barrel with all the nice things already included (4D graphics goodies and all those stuff and don't forget FUSILLI and all kinds of merry things bouncing and moving around on the desktop). Especially those with their new gear looking for something special or alternative to what is already in the market. Food for thought...

[dimkr]

But how do you do that? How do you build a new distro with new and more resources hungry components that require modern CPU or GPU capabilities and no longer support legacy hardware?

Old computers work best with old software. But my 2011 laptop can still run any modern Linux distro and any modern DE, so why use an old and crippled distro?

[sonny]

It requires 50Gb to install the OS (A/B partition)

Aargh, even winblow$ requires less (I think).

IT evolves with diminishing returns. Bigger in capacity and faster in speed, i.e. Samsung discontinued their 200MB/s 32GB USB 3.1. Soon their 64GB (300MB/s) follows. 128GB and 256GB (400MB/s) USB 3.1 are at their peak right now. Relevance matters.

[proebler]

IMO things like Gopher and Gemini (i.e. https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/s ... -a-pi.html) are the closest you can get to "web browsing" with computers with < 2 GB of RAM. With a slow CPU even Gemini can be slow.

@dimkr Thanks a lot for that link to cheapskatesguide.org , a very interesting site !

[stevie pup]

As far as old machines goes, the older Puppy's are MUCH lighter on resources and also there is quite a difference performance-wise between a 32-bit and 64-bit distributions on an older "challenged" machine and nobody is going to convince me otherwise as I have been running older machines for ages. I've seen and experienced it for myself. And don't get me wrong - if you have new, flashy hardware, why the hell wouldn't you want to run the latest biggest, heaviest, all the bells and whistles distribution? Your machine can handle it. To be fair, if I had a new powerful machine, I would probably NOT have used Puppy.

I have to agree @amethyst. A couple of years back I did a comparison between Bionic32 and Bionic64 for RAM consumption, and the difference was massive, Bionic64 was taking nearly twice as much as Bionic32. All of my machines are 64 bit, so I can manage without a 32 bit OS, but I realise that in some parts of the world there is still a definite need for a 32 bit OS.

One of my laptops has 6Gb RAM, and I run MX Linux on that. But at the other end of the scale I have a little Netbook with only 1.7Gb (usable) RAM, which is where I usually run Puppies. It doesn't normally struggle, but then again my computing needs these days are quite simple. Don't know what all this stuff is about having loads of tabs open in a browser, that sounds like multi-tasking to me, which I thought was something only women did. I've always been a strictly "one thing at a time" type of person, so I only have two tabs open at the most.

[mikewalsh]

Old computers work best with old software.

I'm glad even our lead dev agrees with me. I've been saying for years that, although it may mean you won't necessarily be able to run an up-to-date browser, for instance, older hardware is always going to be happier running an OS that would have been current at the time it was being manufactured & sold.

(Having said that, I'm pleasantly surprised to find that even the Dell Latitude D630 I 'upgraded' to last year - released in 2007 - seems perfectly happy with AND capable of running even the very latest 64-bit Puppies, browsers and apps. After many, many years of running a Pentium 4 in ye anciente Inspiron 1100, the Core2Duo's abilities are quite an eye-opener in terms of just what it can handle.....even virtualisation, should I wish to play with a VM.)

Mike.

[wiak]

Don't know what all this stuff is about having loads of tabs open in a browser, that sounds like multi-tasking to me

Happens when researching a topic - many links on a page that might be relevant so I tend to open them all since I am flitting around between pages so often lose track of the original page - end result is lots of tabs open...

The lowest power computer I use is a 2008 model Intel Atom N570-355 64bit emachines netboot 2GB RAM.

Runs KLV-Airedale fine and okay with modern browser with few tabs open (especially if zram swap set up).

But that particular Atom N570 CPU turns out to be better than the Atom CPU in lots of similar sized netbooks

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest ... ----166GHz

Small, low power chip with four threads designed for everyday computing like word processing and web browsing. Limited in design by its slow front side bus speed of 667MHz single-channel RAM with a max capacity of 2GB, it will work best with lightweight systems like Ubuntu / Linux and Windows 7. Despite its age and low power design those two hyperthreaded cores are more than capable of seamless tasking, just don't try too much at once. Youtube in 480p is just fine, and given the tiny 10" screen most of these CPU's are bundled in you won't need much more than that anyway.

Biggest limitation of that netbook (like most similar netbooks) is in fact that weird low-resolution 10" screen: 1024x600

However, has big plus in that that Atom N570 CPU has very low power consumption (so the netbook pays for itself in a way...low annual electricity consumption even if swithched on 24/7) - the CPU Thermal Design Power is just 8.5 Watts.

I'm planning to use it for Zoneminder - might well use BionicPup32 for that though since low resource usage and rockedge has Zoneminder setup for that.

[dimkr]

(Having said that, I'm pleasantly surprised to find that even the Dell Latitude D630 I 'upgraded' to last year - released in 2007 - seems perfectly happy with AND capable of running even the very latest 64-bit Puppies, browsers and apps.

IMO this is the kind of hardware Puppy should focus on, and let old releases take care of old computers that only run old stuff.

[Jasper]

There is an old Linux build that only has functionality for browsing and a media player circa 2009 (.......... mentions Lucid/Ubuntu and a kernel 2.6.35.7 )

The ISO is only 64mb

http://ftp.ubuntu-tw.org/mirror/downloa ... -0.9.2.iso

There is even a GitHub page for tool to build ISO's. However, their Wiki page has ceased to exist.

https://github.com/penk/mkxpud

Might be useful for those with legacy PC's or someone who might want see if they can update it. There must be 100s' of similar ISO's out there

There's some info provided on their GitHub page:

Code: Select all

[name]
# name of this recipe

[package]
# packages to be installed via apt-get or some other package manager

#---------------------------

[action]
# actions to be executed before install this recipe
# for example, you can download or checkout codes here

[post_action]
# actions to be executed after install this recipe
# for example, you can download or checkout codes here

#---------------------------

[binary]
# binaries to be copied from your host to target
# these data will be handle by ldd-helper 
# and the *.so.* files are copied automatically 

[sd_hook]
# for binaries or libraries under irregular path
# data will be handle by ldd-helper 
# and the *.so.* files are copied automatically 

#---------------------------

[data]
# other necessary data to be used with applications
# for example /usr/share/* and /usr/lib/*
# these will be copied from your host to target directory

[config]
# configuration files to be overwritten 
# these will be copied from the "package/config" directory

[alternative]
# project-specified configuration files
# under "package/config/alternative/$MKXPUD_CODENAME/" 

[overwrite]
# system-wide files to be overwritten
# these will be copied from the "skeleton/overwrite" directory

Code: Select all

.
|-- README					the file you're reading
|-- config
|   `-- default.cookbook			default config file for project
|-- deploy
|   `-- vmlinuz-2.6.31.2			pre-built kernel image
|-- kernel
|   |-- config-2.6.31.2
|   |-- config-busybox-1.15.2
|   `-- module				pre-built kernel module
|-- package
|   |-- config				config files to be copied to target
|   `-- recipe				config files for package
|-- skeleton	
|   |-- archive				3rd-parties data to be used whle building
|   |-- boot				boot loader and installer 
|   |-- overwrite				data to be copied to target 
|   `-- rootfs.tgz				skeleton rootfs
|-- tools
|   `-- mkxpud				the main script 
`-- working					working and temporary files 

[sonny]

There is an old Linux build that only has functionality for browsing and a media player circa 2009 (.......... mentions Lucid/Ubuntu and a kernel 2.6.35.7 )

The ISO is only 64mb

http://ftp.ubuntu-tw.org/mirror/downloa ... -0.9.2.iso

There is even a GitHub page for tool to build ISO's. However, their Wiki page has ceased to exist.

https://github.com/penk/mkxpud

Might be useful for those with legacy PC's or someone who might want see if they can update it. There must be 100s' of similar ISO's out there

There's some info provided on their GitHub page:

Code: Select all

[name]
# name of this recipe

[package]
# packages to be installed via apt-get or some other package manager

#---------------------------

[action]
# actions to be executed before install this recipe
# for example, you can download or checkout codes here

[post_action]
# actions to be executed after install this recipe
# for example, you can download or checkout codes here

#---------------------------

[binary]
# binaries to be copied from your host to target
# these data will be handle by ldd-helper 
# and the *.so.* files are copied automatically 

[sd_hook]
# for binaries or libraries under irregular path
# data will be handle by ldd-helper 
# and the *.so.* files are copied automatically 

#---------------------------

[data]
# other necessary data to be used with applications
# for example /usr/share/* and /usr/lib/*
# these will be copied from your host to target directory

[config]
# configuration files to be overwritten 
# these will be copied from the "package/config" directory

[alternative]
# project-specified configuration files
# under "package/config/alternative/$MKXPUD_CODENAME/" 

[overwrite]
# system-wide files to be overwritten
# these will be copied from the "skeleton/overwrite" directory

Code: Select all

.
|-- README					the file you're reading
|-- config
|   `-- default.cookbook			default config file for project
|-- deploy
|   `-- vmlinuz-2.6.31.2			pre-built kernel image
|-- kernel
|   |-- config-2.6.31.2
|   |-- config-busybox-1.15.2
|   `-- module				pre-built kernel module
|-- package
|   |-- config				config files to be copied to target
|   `-- recipe				config files for package
|-- skeleton	
|   |-- archive				3rd-parties data to be used whle building
|   |-- boot				boot loader and installer 
|   |-- overwrite				data to be copied to target 
|   `-- rootfs.tgz				skeleton rootfs
|-- tools
|   `-- mkxpud				the main script 
`-- working					working and temporary files 

In today's economy, a 20-year-old laptop and a 10-year-old laptop are only a couple of bucks apart. A 100MB OS and a 1000MB OS are probably no longer relevant.

[wiak]

Ubuntu minimal requirement is 4GB ram, for Puppy it should be much less IMO, otherwise where would be the Puppy "philosophy" of being able to run on "older" computers !?

You can run Puppy with 512 MB, 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM. But will you be able to run a modern browser (one where you can do your finance, watch Youtube, play Spotify ... with >= 4 tabs)?

In one word.....NO. (And the state of the modern web is the culprit here; people EXPECT all the bells, whistles and fancy, flashing, in-yer-face graphics, don't they?)

(*shrug*)

Can't have it both ways, can we?

Except, a lot of websites remain that are not heavy on resources when browsing them. Others (like anything Google-related) are of course, but having an automatic mechanism for limiting tabs available to be opened might be a workaround on lower RAM systems. Seems there used to be extentions for Firefox that could limit tabs(?):

Firefox related:
https://superuser.com/questions/1444938 ... in-firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... ent=search
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... ent=search
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... ent=search

Chrome related:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... oaoofcoeff

I suppose could also prevent browser opening some known-greedy sites (at least most of the time) - a blacklist...?

Assuming you already have a more powerful machine for normal use with no limiting required, another methodology is to use older computers for single or just a few tasks (e.g. rockedge and his Zoneminder running on BionicPup32 and similar).\
But more useful often is simply to use low resourced machines as thin clients via the likes of vnc and so on to more powerful networked server.

[amethyst]

I have an old machine but specs not really all that dire. 2Gb RAM and duo processor. I rarely open lots of tabs and I can run stuff like youtube videos, etc without issues. I do tend to use youtube's mobile site or watching videos via duckduckgo though as it is less resource hungry. It also depends which browser you use. Firefox seems to be less demanding than Palemoon when browsing the youtube site or other google sites for instance. Palemoon performs better for me on a challenged machine with other sites. The google sites are heavy in general. I would agree that any "lower" specs than mine will be very challenging to run a modern browser. BTW - I don't even use a swap file.

[wiak]

Ubuntu minimal requirement is 4GB ram, for Puppy it should be much less IMO, otherwise where would be the Puppy "philosophy" of being able to run on "older" computers !?

Asking myself the question: why would new people visit Puppy Linux forum it would seem to me that the biggest such potential audience will have an older machine they want to find something that can still run on it and in such a way that it doesn't feel too crippled or slow. Then they would look for small Linux variants and Puppy is always on such lists and usually with blurb that suggests it uses less RAM and CPU and is good on older machines... Hence I suspect most new users come looking to try Puppy for that purpose. Actually they could equally try various DebianDogs and KL distros for same purpose, but the outside forum blurb doesn't usually mention that so traditional Puppy Linux is the likely target audience.

Funnily enough, many seasoned forum members have probably long ago relegated their much 'older' machines for occasional usage only and tend to work on newer (less than say 12 year old machines) that will easily run even well known larger distros reasonably well. Some of may stick to using Puppy on new or newish machines for the simple reason that Puppy is what they are familiar with and thus comfortable with and often with detailed experience and knowledge about using it, but less familiar with alternatives. Over time, however, Puppy is almost being forced into closer compliance with upstream distros; after all it uses upstream repos and sub-system developments such as pulseaudio, pipewire, Wayland and more, do not stand still and since repo support is heavily involved there Puppy is even moving to using official upstream package managers to handle these upstream repos more correctly.

Nevertheless, in my view, old computers (being lower resourced) is indeed the likeliest reason new people come to this forum to find something that works on their older machines. Having said that, the really old machines Puppy distros like Puppy 2.17 and 4.12 and even the likes of Tahr were originally designed for (older than, say, 12 years old machines) are fading away entirely (you'll find them under the dust in your cupboards or garage still maybe). Such low-resourced machines typically used more electricity than they are worth - could save a hundred dollars a year maybe using a low-powered modern machine (<12 years old) that can be bought for $50 and without all the slowness and software restrictions involved in working with old bricks. The expensive back then brand new machine of 2010 and so on, is the old machine of today - don't need traditional old Puppy to run that well. In fact, you run the risk of limiting your own development as a modern Linux user - restricted in what you understand and do - that's why Puppy needs to change over time, like everything does. Nostalgia is usually falsely romantic in its view of the past really. The 'Philosophy' can stay the same, but the target machines and the resources they provide and modern facilities they support change over time - you need to move with the times whether you keep that original philosophy or not (well, as an individual or small group, you don't need to change over time, but new people to this forum are a different matter on the whole).

There is a common sense reason why you should do most of your computing on your newer machine if you also have an older machine - it's not going to stay new/newish, so you might as well enjoy it whilst it is... and you only have one pair of eyes and set of hands so most of the time you are only going to be using one computer at a time and might as well enjoy the most flexible and powerful instead of messing around just trying to get pretty simple things to even work... Different if you don't have a newer/better/more-efficient and flexible machine though, or if you are giving an older computer to someone else who doesn't.

[Jasper]

I do concur with @wiak argument and advances are made with new hardware in mind. It's a bonus if updates do include backports.

After reading the post, I was reminded of a radio programme broadcast on the BBC on Monday which discussed where our older tech/hardware ends up.

Listening to the programme, I was informed by the presenter that countries in Africa and Sri Lanka were still utilising 1.44mb floppy drives.

The programme itself is really about Nick Gentry (artist) who uses floppy discs and VHS cassettes as part of his artwork.

Here are few links if you are interested:

Nicky Gentry - artowrk

https://www.nickgentry.com/

Radio programme - non DRM MP3 via the BBC website

https://shorturl.at/cosEK (128kbps)

or

https://shorturl.at/mJS46 (64kbps)