Here's a challenge, distro for this OLD PC...

[RyanGreener]

Hmmm, well I gotta wait until I get home in 1-2 days. I wanna make this desktop come back to life

 

[ultimatebob]

Heh... maybe you should put an OS from that era on the system, and see how that performs.

Red Hat 9, perhaps?

 

[Nothinman]

Heh... maybe you should put an OS from that era on the system, and see how that performs.

Red Hat 9, perhaps?

God no...

 

[VinDSL]

How much memory is SeaMonkey using for that one tab?

Thought I might followup on this query (sort of)...

I didn't install SeaMonkey on Puppy 5.0.1. I decided to run Chromium.

I just did a 'top' and Chromium was using 75% mem and 90% CPU on this web page.

The default browser (Puppy HTML Viewer) only uses 15% mem and 20% CPU on the same page.

If I surf to a page that's heavily laden with Flash, the resource usage is pretty much the same, between these two browsers.

Actually, this thing is pretty spunky, all things considered.

 

[joetekubi]

Lucid Puppy sure looks good!
I'll have to d/l it and give it a spin.
Congrats on poking around a bit in xorg.conf and finding the problem.
re:"Actually, this thing is pretty spunky, all things considered. "

Yah, pretty amazing in this era of multi-gb ram systems that you can
run a modern os on really old hardware.

 

[VinDSL]

Lucid Puppy sure looks good![...]

Yes, it does, but...

Check this out! :sneaky:

After playing with "Lucid Puppy" for 24 hours, I wiped the HDD and installed Macpup Opera 2

Macpup Opera 2 is based on Puppy 4.3.1 -- which works better on this doorstop, e.g. Intel chipset.

The default theme looks great (if you like Macs) but I decided to install the Wood5 pet (above).

Looks pretty decent, yes?

EDIT

Here's some linkage:

http://macpup.org/ (Macpup Website - Main Page)​

http://macpup.org/runtt21/ (Macpup Website - Themes)​

 

[VinDSL]

LoL!

Am I producing any Puppy converts yet?!?!? ()

 

[Paperlantern]

Well I am certainly going to look into puppy for a couple of my doorstops, that's for sure. As for the OP, i'm not sure why XP wouldnt work for you, like someone said, it's not the OS, it's the software you use on it. Vin, how much RAM are those installs of puppy chewing up upon boot. Like turn it on, do NOTHING but open system monitor and look at used memory?

I dont see XP on a machine with 32 or 64MB but 384 should be PLENTY for XP, I have a install I use here occasionally that boots to 86MB used. Leaving close to 300MB free to still open programs and USE the machine. That's regular old XP Pro, no lite installs or anything. I mean, don't get me wrong, i'm not telling you to use XP, I love linux too and think it will probably be BETTER than XP, i'm just pointing out that XP SHOULD work just fine on that rig.

 

[VinDSL]

[...]Vin, how much RAM are those installs of puppy chewing up upon boot. Like turn it on, do NOTHING but open system monitor and look at used memory?[...]

Here's a top for you...

Whoa! I just realized... this brute has 190MB RAM!

Anyway, it was about 50/50 before I took the screenie, e.g. 90-ish MB sitting idle.

 

[Nothinman]

Anyway, it was about 50/50 before I took the screenie, e.g. 90-ish MB sitting idle.

Because you have no real apps running...

 

[VinDSL]

Because you have no real apps running...

Er... He asked -- I answered -- that's all.

I've had this donor machine for a couple of months. A workmate was emotionally attached to it (obviously took good care of it too) and wanted to see it go to a good home.

I don't normally mess around with ancient hardware, such as circa 2000 eMachines, but this thread spurred me to action.

Truthfully, Macpup Opera 2 worked a treat on this machine!

I wouldn't want to encode a video on it, but for surfing the web, doing my mail, et cetera, it's working just fine...

 

[VinDSL]

I dont see XP on a machine with 32 or 64MB but 384 should be PLENTY for XP[...]

This eMachine came with XP installed. No telling where it had been (on the web) so I wiped the HDD.

LoL! Now that I think about it, I was the guy that installed XP for the former owner...

If I remember correctly, the AV software is what killed the performance on this thing.

Maybe that's what Nothinman means by a "real app".

I'll guess I could install F-Prot... :awe:

 

[RyanGreener]

On XP, I had AV software installed because well, I need it to be secure, even if I don't really use it much. Maybe tonight I'll install this stuff on the junk machine

 

[VinDSL]

On XP, I had AV software installed because well, I need it to be secure, even if I don't really use it much.[...]

You probably won't believe this.

I've done virgin installs of XP and gotten viruses in a matter of minutes... before I could download and install (freeware) AV software. No kidding!

Maybe tonight I'll install this stuff on the junk machine

I don't mean to be rudimentary, but...

If you install Puppy (et al.) run GParted first, and make a swap partition.

Example:

Some installers will do this for you automagically -- some won't. With Puppy, YOU need to partition your HDD manually.

 

[VinDSL]

w00t!

Here's an excellent Macpup install video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkTwIf97dAQ

It's a little fuzzy, and the producer is a Brit, but it'll give you the idea...

 

[VinDSL]

I couldn't take the web fonts any more!

Here's a nice MS Core TTF Web Font pet:

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/c9f1d8d6d0_5.97MB​

LoL! I don't usually like MS Fonts, but I'll make an exception, in this case! :sneaky:

 

[RyanGreener]

Hmmm, I DBAN'd my HD awhile ago to make sure XP was completely gotten rid of and I planned on installing Puppy on it's own. I've done installs of Puppy in the past, but anyways, today when I tried to install it it just wouldn't work. I don't remember the exact error, but I also tried installing other operating systems and it wouldn't work. There was plenty wrong with this desktop already (some USB ports weren't working, etc.) and now I'm starting to think there's more wrong. I've pretty much given up on this desktop and i'm pretty much going to junk it now. It's ok though....I've got a new semi-modern desktop coming in that I bought from someone on these forums

 

[Ancalagon44]

Does anyone find it scary that there are smartphones more powerful than the OP's machine? In every respect except hard drive space.

 

[VinDSL]

Does anyone find it scary that there are smartphones more powerful than the OP's machine?[...]

I find it scarier that they're building desktop machines around netbook processors... :\

Picked at random: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883220022 (Newegg - Asus Eee Box)

 

[RyanGreener]

Yeah my netbook right now is way faster than that old relic I had.

 

[VinDSL]

Well...

Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you, but...

At least I got my (most recent) doorstop smoookin'! :twisted:

ADDENDUM

Three days and counting...

The more I use this Macpup Opera 2 - the more I like it! :thumbsup:

Heh! I wonder what it would do on a real computer!?!?!

 

[joetekubi]

I've never been a fan of Enlightement window manager, but that MacPup remaster looks gorgeous! I'm gonna have to give it a spin on my old laptop (128M ram)
Thanks for the tip.

-joe

 

[sivart]

Well...

Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you, but...

At least I got my (most recent) doorstop smoookin'! :twisted:

ADDENDUM

Three days and counting...

The more I use this Macpup Opera 2 - the more I like it! :thumbsup:

Heh! I wonder what it would do on a real computer!?!?!

The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to get it to show me the status of my wireless connection. Kind of annoying to open a browser to learn that you aren't connected.

 

[lxskllr]

The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to get it to show me the status of my wireless connection. Kind of annoying to open a browser to learn that you aren't connected.

There should be some kind of widget you can add to the dock that displays wireless status.

 

[VinDSL]

The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to get it to show me the status of my wireless connection.

There should be some kind of widget you can add to the dock that displays wireless status.

With Macpup Opera 2.0, just:

• Load the Wlan module, using the Module Settings.
  
• Add the Wlan Gadget to the contents of shelf 1.

Here's a screenie...

The Wireless Monitor is now loaded and sitting to the right of the Calendar.

Simple pimple... :sneaky: