Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I've always been a big believer in the original Puppy concept of keeping old, low powered machines running. I'm just a general user who uses Puppies on a little netbook I have, which is pretty under powered so it needs something lightweight. I've been comparing various Puppies (and couple of other distros) and can't help noticing the way things have gone. With each subsequent Puppy release the ISO's get bigger, and system requirements increase. We get up to Fossapup and we need minimum 1Gb RAM, (preferably 2Gb to be comfortable), and it's 64 bit only. So nobody's going to be running Fossa on a very old machine.

But why is this? Let's face it, it doesn't take any more resources to view a JPG image or play an MP3 file now than it did 20 years ago. Have things grown the way they have purely down to accommodating increasingly bloated Browsers and Web sites? I must admit my computing needs are fairly simple these days, and less than what they were a few years ago, so I could well be missing something. There may be some functionality catered for which I never use. Having said that, what does Fossa do that (for example) Tahr doesn't? Anything?

Among my comparisons I've been giving Antix a spin, and for the things I've tried with it required resources are very low. It does have some quirks compared to "mainline" distros, some of which I haven't quite got my head around yet. The other thing in it's favour is that it doesn't appear to be an issue installing any of my preferred software, but that's another subject entirely. I will be sticking with Bionic32 for now, as although the machine is 64 bit it uses noticeably less resources than Bionic64.

Interested to hear anyone else's viewpoints or comments.

Rewind a decade ago and Puppy could get away with a browser (in particular) that wasn't mainstream. These days, even the non-mainstream browsers, ie the ones that aren't Chrome or Firefox have to work on the modern web.
That is the single biggest thing for increased size of Pups, the browsers and the "parts" to make them work. If you're not working online, get 2.14 or 4.31 - both super fast Puppies from the past that will work on pretty much anything. If you are working online, the nature of the modern (HTTPS) internet means you need heavier stuff.

Biggest problem is the internet browsers, newer components need to be built into Puppy so that you can use a new browser. Newer, newer, newer. Bigger, bigger bigger. It's killing old machines. Really sad actually.

@amethyst And a main reason behind the growth of the complexity of the browsers is the web designer. The modern web designer and the software people that put them together have the mentality of Apple and Microsoft. These designers do not program and design WEB SITES to be light and efficient as possible, but quite the opposite.

The shear amount of cross links, iFrames, and EMBEDDED MEDIA that are being called. The intense Javascript and the other programing and scripting languages are just TOO heavy and use media types that call advertisements into play.

The expectations are out of bounds. So build browsers capable of all this means lots of resources and huge cache's as well. Look at how the modern programmer builds software packages.......features and more features and base designs that take CPU, storage and RAM for granted. They build these sites with only the newest machines and operating systems in mind.

Probably, developers develop for the latest hardware because that's what they're given to develop on.

some interesting numbers on the ubuntu pups

lucidpup released in 2012 is 5.4 times smaller than ubuntu lucid lynx
precisepup released in 2013 is 4.6 times smaller than ubuntu precise pangolin
tahrpup64 released in 2015 is 5 times smaller than ubuntu trusty tahr
xenialpup64 released in 2017 is 4.8 times smaller than ubuntu xenial xerus
bionicpup64 released in 2019 is 6.4 times smaller than ubuntu bionic beaver
fossapup released in 2020 is 7.5 times smaller than ubuntu focal fossa
fossapup without the adrv.sfs is 18.9 times smaller than ubuntu focal fossa

it's all relative

stevie pup wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:42 am

So nobody's going to be running Fossa on a very old machine.

Well I don't know how old are you talking about but I am running fossapup on a 12 year old dell laptop with 2gb ram and internal hdd crashed. I have frugally installed fossapup to my external hdd.

A 12 year old laptop is also very old. So puppy is quite satisfactory.

And to reduce ram usage you can add the boot option not to copy sfs files to ram. Fossapup just uses 300mb on startup (with the option of not to copy). (I think the option was nocopy or something. I don't remember it now)

As has been said the Browser demands of modern internet. 10 or more years ago a lean Pup like 4.12 or 4.31 with seamonkey would have sufficed on really old kit.

@user1234 :-

user1234 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 5:12 pm

A 12 year old laptop is also very old. So puppy is quite satisfactory.

^^^LOLOLOL!!!

Your machine's a "spring chicken" compared to my anciente Dell laptop. Later this year, she'll celebrate her 20th birthday..!

The only reason she's just been retired from active service is simple; because even the most lightweight modern browsers cause the P4 to redline at 100% continuously. In the words of the quote from Lewis Carroll's "Alice through the looking-glass", running as fast as she possibly can just to stay in the same place.

A great deal of frenzied activity.....with absolutely nowt to show for it.

Puppy itself runs fine. But to me, without a browser, any OS is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

I would say your machine is probably in the "sweet spot" for Puppy adoption.....

Mike.

In terms of RAM free reported if checked by 'free' utility immediately after boot, and also the startup CPU usage, the main difference (aside from case of distro component parts also being run from RAM) is the desktop manager or the desktop environment used. When distro itself not run from RAM there is often very little difference (tending to irrelevant difference) between ANY distro as long as the desktop manager or overall desktop environment AND the non-desktop-manager-related number of background services running, is the same, despite the many claims.

Running a distro in RAM is useful if you have slow hard disk or whatever media you are booting from, but has the disadvantage that it uses up RAM simply for storing a copy of the distro images, which is a problem on old low RAM machines rather than an advantage if RAM is in short supply. On newer machines there is often plenty RAM for distro in RAM use, the modern web browser is the main problem indeed for resource consumption.

So the usefulness of any distro on older machine comes down to selection of desktop manager and so on, and turning off any unneeded services and (assuming boot media not too slow and RAM is limited) NOT running distro from RAM. Puppy traditionally has the advantage of small distro image size so convenient for download and occupies less RAM in that state, which makes it good for running in RAM mode (though not once larger apps are installed on it unless these are not run from RAM).

Generally speaking, very low-powered computers that have fast enough boot media are better not run from RAM - full install being traditional best practice (in terms of resource usage efficiency) for such machines really, but if your distro can run from not-from-RAM uncompressed images (rather than sfs), though Puppy can't, the result is pretty much same good efficiency as full install. On the whole, it hardly matters though - on any machine no more than 8 or 10 years old, the browser (heavy web) issues dominate.

There is a BASE fallacy in the OP's thinking. Somehow it is BELIEVED that functionality and improvements are to come without growth and maturity.

There is a reason we, in PC community, have grown from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit; to the experimental 128-bit and quantum computing.

Thus as things progress in time, one SHOULD expect a growth to provide the needed and useful things we enjoy, IMHO.

I offer this to those of us who see these kinds of openings. PLEASE lead them to understand there are old PUPs without the upgraded changes that still run and are in existence...thanks in part to @ally and the PUP Archive he continues to improve.

If anyone doesn't like today's PUPs, there still remains yesterday PUPs which continue to operate on even today's 64-bit PCs.

What's happened to Puppy? Nothing! It has continued to Mature...just as we have. .

Just an idea!

BTW: Growth is NOT bloat. Bloat is another term we need to lose as it is a negative term used by people who object to things they personally dont want others to use. Use of the term makes them feel important is term's use as they judge the works of others.

@Clarity :

Good Comment !

Puppy Linux must be sufficiently useful to a sufficient number of computing types to justify the effort put into assembling, documenting and maintaining the operating system, and more than just the OS. An OS without a browser is as useful as a hip pocket in a singlet. 40 years ago an 8-bit processor was as good as you got. 64 kilo-bytes of RAM meant the memory address space was full. And so on.

In 2022 some browsers that run under Puppy no longer function on some web-pages. Puppy lives in a world dominated by people who use Apple computers or Microsoft Windows or by software developers who write browsers. A lot of code comes from 'code mills' - and these aren't hand-crafted to be small and efficient. They produce code that works to a spec in the shortest possible time. A working Puppy isn't merely am operating system; a working Puppy is interested in internet communication - whatever that means.

Generally, the question asked has been well-answered by the plethora of postings here.

Woof! -- Cobaka

A lot of interesting comments, and pretty unanimous that it is all down to browsers. I suppose one of the things that irritates me the most is that a lot of browsers and websites wouldn't be anywhere near as heavyweight if they weren't crammed with so many trackers and ads. Sign of the times sadly.

Couple of you have suggested that an OS without a browser would be a complete waste of space, and you're right with regard to the masses. Thing is, I'm probably not regarded as one of the masses. I know for a fact I'm in a minority here in the UK because I don't own a smart phone. Had first home PC in 2005, Windows XP and a dial up internet connection. I spent many hours on that machine without even touching the internet.

Of course I use the internet, but I don't spend all day on it. I don't use Facebook, Twitter or anything of that nature, I use it to look for specific things, whether that be for info, to purchase something, whatever. I don't just browse endlessly for the hell of it. Do I need the internet to listen to my music collection? No. Or to type a letter, or edit a video clip? No. In fact, do any of my current machines or OS's do anything that the old XP didn't? Most likely, but I haven't noticed what it is so it's evidently some function that I don't need. Oh alright then, couple of them have got webcams, which the XP didn't, (and I never use).

So no, I probably haven't matured in the conventional computer sense. But what the hell, I'm generally happy most of the time.

stevie pup wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:42 am

I'm just a general user who uses Puppies on a little netbook I have, which is pretty under powered so it needs something lightweight. I've been comparing various Puppies (and couple of other distros) and can't help noticing the way things have gone. With each subsequent Puppy release the ISO's get bigger, and system requirements increase.

Stick with 32bit puppies and start a thread giving the specifics of your netbook. It will be possible to find/build a really useful pup that gives you exactly what you want (since you do not need netflix or drm based web stuff...) .

Be clear about your needs (word processing / video processing / website preferences etc etc) and I am sure you will have many options that make a puppy hum.

@stevie pup :-

In some respects, I'm like you. No smartphone here, either; just an old Nokia 'dumb-phone'.

TBH, if it wasn't for the Forums I belong to - 'cos I enjoy discussing Linux, 'puters & stuff - and NetFlix; must have my 'fix' of NetFlix, and I blame folks on the old Forum entirely for that.....I'm a huge sci-fi nut - I, too, probably wouldn't bother with t'internet.

I don't browse endlessly for the sake of it. I do have the rig on much of the day, though, because as a full-time carer I frequently get spells when my 'duties' are over; I need something to pass the time..!

I'm certainly not interested in carrying the world-wide-web around in my pocket, and you won't catch me trying to browse on a 5" or 6" screen. If I go online, I want my comfy office chair, a proper keyboard, a decent mouse and a nice big screen; none of this squatting in a corner, trying to catch up on social media while squinting at a tiny screen for me (can't stand social media anyway!)

i could happily spend the day working off-line.....building packages, maybe watch one of my huge collection of vids, or listen to music while I'm re-organising the file-system or indulging in my hobby of graphic design. I can live without it, yes.....but I would miss you guys..!

Mike.

All excellent observations, it following the developing philosophy that Barry Kauler used at the start.

mikewalsh wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 10:55 am

@stevie pup :-

In some respects, I'm like you. No smartphone here, either; just an old Nokia 'dumb-phone'.

TBH, if it wasn't for the Forums I belong to - 'cos I enjoy discussing Linux, 'puters & stuff - and NetFlix; must have my 'fix' of NetFlix, and I blame folks on the old Forum entirely for that.....I'm a huge sci-fi nut - I, too, probably wouldn't bother with t'internet.

I don't browse endlessly for the sake of it. I do have the rig on much of the day, though, because as a full-time carer I frequently get spells when my 'duties' are over; I need something to pass the time..!

I'm certainly not interested in carrying the world-wide-web around in my pocket, and you won't catch me trying to browse on a 5" or 6" screen. If I go online, I want my comfy office chair, a proper keyboard, a decent mouse and a nice big screen; none of this squatting in a corner, trying to catch up on social media while squinting at a tiny screen for me (can't stand social media anyway!)

i could happily spend the day working off-line.....building packages, maybe watch one of my huge collection of vids, or listen to music while I'm re-organising the file-system or indulging in my hobby of graphic design. I can live without it, yes.....but I would miss you guys..!

Mike.

I would rather not expand on my ancient stuff but maybe I should just for some laughs: Laptop which is 16 years old, desktop same age, boombox from 1985, hi-fi also somewhere in the 80's, ancient 74 cm crt tv (although I don't watch tv anymore), microwave almost 30 years old, fridge around 30 years, a bedside clock radio (actually it 's just a clock, a combination with radio was scarce back then) more than 40 years old, portable radio nearing 30 years, cheapest cellphone on the market in 2009 with no colour display, I sold a 1987-model motor car about 2 years ago and so on....... All these stuff I've mentioned is still in daily use. BTW - I totally agree with regards to browsing (and watching media) on a 7 inch screen. What an absolute waste and extremely irritating......

Puppy has huge improvements since 2019 especially on GUI design and package management.

mistfire wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 12:51 pm

Puppy has huge improvements since 2019 especially on GUI design and package management.

Xorg has also improved a lot since the old days.

stevie pup wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:42 am

But why is this? Let's face it, it doesn't take any more resources to view a JPG image or play an MP3 file now than it did 20 years ago. Have things grown the way they have purely down to accommodating increasingly bloated Browsers and Web sites? I must admit my computing needs are fairly simple these days, and less than what they were a few years ago, so I could well be missing something. There may be some functionality catered for which I never use. Having said that, what does Fossa do that (for example) Tahr doesn't? Anything?

Same on all machines, piggy demands for the same user tasks on a progressive timeline.

Always here from a unique perspective, Puppy has a few implicit mission points to remember:

• Puppy theme

• Resource efficiency

• The top all-in-ram distro

Other items like single-user as root fall in line, as those two are less features than goal compromises.

Mission care is haphazard, but that's what Barry made to set Puppy apart. The grey area is the idea of friendliness. Debian itself should scare non-techies away, but Puppy is more approachable if not quite friendly.

Continuously evolving my new set is preferring XFCE to every other environment I've tried for the compromise of (1)aesthetics/ergonomics, (2)user access, and (3)weight, though one has to wonder why a modest 'full' 32 is about 200M while a 64 400M (rough feature comparison). How are tasks that much more demanding for double the media space? That's all I've been booting recently.

I should make a list of why I need Xenial over Tahr for myself, but otherwise you are preaching to the choir.

JASpup wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 9:03 am

one has to wonder why a modest 'full' 32 is about 200M while a 64 400M (rough feature comparison)

Here are some numbers from the latest woof-CE automated build:

(x86, slackware, 14.2, 4.19.x-x86) - 329 MB
(x86_64, slackware64, 14.2, 4.19.x-x86_64) - 333 MB

(x86, slackware, 15.0, 5.15.x-x86) - 552 MB
(x86_64, slackware64, 15.0, 5.15.x-x86_64) - 562 MB

(x86_64, debian, bullseye64, 5.10.x-x86_64) - 364 MB
(x86, debian, bullseye, 5.10.x-x86) - 358 MB

The difference in size between 32 bit and 64 bit builds is negligible.

However, if you use a 4 year old 32-bit Puppy, it will be much smaller than a new 64-bit one (as you can see here, Slacko 8.x is 167% the size of 7.x).

The sizes of the iso's ready for distribution are relative. Need to compare apples with apples. Different distros are packaged using different compressors (and different compression ratios). To compare the actual sizes, one has to decompress the contents first.

@dimkr point recognized.

The comparison you quoted are puplets, X-Tahr and Battleshooter Xenial minus Libreoffice + Whisker, both minus builtin browsers. My X-Tahr also has the modest dependencies to run current browsers.

The differences between vanilla JWM Tahr & Xenial themselves are significant, but overall I do not see the weight scare of XFCE over JWM.

There is Puppy achievement in pre-pupsave .sfs, and as I understand we are still dealing with a- & y-drv for apps and settings, customization options presenting a creative constraint.

My imagination now is driven at booting 32pups on 64 machines to see what we are giving up.

Presumably Debian 5 is comparable to Slackware 14? It may be common knowledge for creators, but from a user seat Slackware compatibility weaknesses are significant enough to question its use.

I was guessing Slackware is used for being lighter and more streamlined.

I'm a tad surprised to read recommendations to run old dogs on modern pig-iron. A few weeks ago I tried to boot 4.31 and 5.25 on a 2017-vintage board just added to my stable, but those dogs wouldn't hunt.

IIRC the oldest pup that would bark for me was Trusty Tahr, but I might be remembering wrong. It might have been Precise. I don't recall the specific error messages, but if anyone is very concerned I can try it again, to refresh the old 8-bit 64k memory chips in my greying cranium.

Now as for web browsing, I suspect that many overworked coding monkeys don't get out enough. They seem to assume that everyone has the newest and hottest hardware, just as they do; that everyone has a gigabit net connection, just as they do; and that everyone uses Chrome, just as they do. So they don't test enough (if at all) on older hardware, or with ADSL, or with other browsers.

Part of good web design is making sites that degrade reasonably gracefully with older and/or slower browsers. The really well made sites even work acceptably without Javascript. I know, because I use Noscript.

If you run a website and you want to get every last pair of eyes on the screen (and every wallet open if you're selling something), then you tell your designers and coders to build those gracefully-degrading sites.

Some of them are smart and do it. You know that mammoth e-commerce site that we all love to hate? Surprise, it still works just fine with Seamonkey 2.33 from 2015. IMO that's one of the many reasons that it's big and stays big. It's called inclusion.

My perspective is a little different from most. Those who can't live without your streaming video and/or your social media, I understand, even though that's not me. There are a few exceptions, but most often when a website won't work with my browser or requires javascript, so what? It's a big web and there are other websites that do. But as the French say. à chacun son goût (to each his own).

And BTW, get off my lawn.

JASpup wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 5:49 am

Presumably Debian 5 is comparable to Slackware 14?

I think you misread my comment.

My comparison shows that a 32-bit dpup based on Debian Bullseye packages is about the same size as a 64-bit dpup with an equivalent set of applications and features, a 32-bit Slacko 8.x built using Slackware 15.0 packages is about the same size as an equivalent Slacko64 8.x, and the same for Slacko{,64} 7.x that uses Slackware 14.2 packages.

A 64 bit Puppy doesn't have to be twice as a big as a 32 bit one - in an apples-to-apples comparison (same functionality, same distro, same distro version), this is rarely the case. You'll see a big difference in size only if it's an unfair comparison, between some old Puppy and a newer one.

(Personally, I find it hard to recommend a 32-bit build, because some proprietary applications are only available for x86_64, some applications are broken on x86, memory consumption is about the same, and x86_64 has a performance and security advantage. More often than not, a 64 bit build gives a better user experience, in the same size/performance budget.)

@dimkr I think I completely understood the first time. The part I think that makes you think I didn't is the discussion of 32-bit distros on 64.

That idea is probably jumbled up in the experience of limited availability, e.g., I have not seen 64-Tahr XFCE, and if it existed, I have grave doubts it would be 200M.

Compare that to... Mainline Tahr 64 would not boot my one 64 machine and I did not fight it. I just wanted to see it since at the time I was using Tahr 32 JWM all the time.

There is also, something as basic as Android connection in 64 Xenial requires a massive dependency called go-mtpfs. I load/install it on demand. 32 Xenial works out of the box. Maybe go-mtpfs is part of 32 Xenial and sans it would be that much lighter.

The only 'completed' 64 XFCEpup I know of is the one I use. In 32 there would be the X-series plus whichever +D series have the ydrv.

My comment about 'giving up' is largely different availability in 32 distros that seem easier to modify if not plainly lighter.

JASpup wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 3:51 pm

I have not seen 64-Tahr XFCE, and if it existed, I have grave doubts it would be 200M.

If a 32-bit Puppy with Xfce is 200 MB, a 64-bit one with exactly the same applications, the same kernel version, etc', should be about 200 MB.

If a 32-bit build of Vanilla Dpup 9.1.x is 98% the size of an equivalent 64-bit build and Xfce is about the same size regardless of architecture, the size will remain about the same after the addition of Xfce.

This specific puplet with Xfce that you use is not small because it's a 32-bit one, but because you're comparing it to much newer releases, or releases with more built-in packages.

the xenialpups were built nearly exactly the same using the same recipe and there's just a 6mb difference between the 32bit and 64bit.

dimkr wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 10:55 am

(Personally, I find it hard to recommend a 32-bit build, because some proprietary applications are only available for x86_64, some applications are broken on x86, memory consumption is about the same, and x86_64 has a performance and security advantage. More often than not, a 64 bit build gives a better user experience, in the same size/performance budget.)

I'm afraid I would have to disagree with that, based on my own experience. I once did a comparison of Bionic 32 and 64, booted up Bionic32, went to a website, and it was using approx 520Mb of RAM. Shut that down, booted Bionic64, went to exactly the same website and it was using nearer 900Mb of RAM. Whether or not there was any underlying problem that I wasn't aware of I don't know, but they were the results.

I've also noticed 32bit distros being noticeably more responsive than 64bit (not just Puppies but other distros as well). Another example is Linux Mint, 32 bit boots up in half the time that 64 bit does, on the same machine. May just be my hardware, I really don't know. I've also never needed to use any software that's 64 bit only, but then again my needs are pretty simple these days.

You may have noticed I've said "don't know" twice in this post, and that could well be the issue, some of the time. If there is something going on in the background that is affecting things but I'm unaware of them, then all I can go on is what's on my screen.