Which Puppy Linux for $20 Chromebox?

[trawglodyte]

I should have sought advice and done more homework before pulling the trigger, but I bought an ASUS CN60 Chromebox on Ebay. Ebay is loaded with them and similar Chromebox's @$20-$30. The base spec is Intel® Celeron® Processor 2955U (2-core 15W), 2G DDR3, 16G SSD, 4-USB 3.0, HDMI & Display Port, ethernet and wi-fi, SD card slot. I see @bigpup has a lot of good information about Puppy on Chromebooks viewtopic.php?t=431 I'll be studying. My plan is to use a Samsung LN26B360 TV https://www.samsung.com/ca/support/mode ... 60C5DXZC/ w/ HDMI cable for display/speakers, and Logitech K200 keyboard/mouse.

Did I go too cheap, or can this processor, RAM, and hardware run Puppy Linux? It looks like somewhere around $90 you can get 4G DDR4, somewhat better CPU, and 32G SSD or better.

I do see you have to hack the firmware to put other OS's on Chromebooks. Anyone have any other tips or advice for this?? Any suggestions about a particular Puppy Linux distro well-suited for this application?

[wizard]

Just depends on what you want to use it for, a quick look on the web says you can flash the bios to boot from USB and also you can upgrade both the ram and ssd. I'd definitely upgrade the ram. The CPU is a little weak, but should be ok for most uses.

wizard

[trawglodyte]

you can upgrade both the ram and ssd. I'd definitely upgrade the ram.

Yah, I just saw a picture of it with the bottom cover off. Looks super easy and affordable to upgrade RAM and SSD. 8G RAM - $15, 128G SSD - $16. You have to open it to remove a screw to hack the BIOS anyway, so worth considering. Some ASUS CN60/CN62 Chromebox's have i3-4010U or i7-4600U processors. Still 2-core, but 4-thread and 1.70GHz 3.30GHz respectively. I will probably test it out with existing 2G RAM and 16G SSD first to see what that's like.

002-ASUS-Chromebox-CN60.jpg (325.67 KiB) Viewed 437 times

[dancytron]

The most recent Bookworm Puppy should autodetect the low ram and give you some zram. For older puppies you might want to set it up manually.

It will prevent/delay the low ram browser lockup, which will be the main result of only 2 Gig of ram.

[trawglodyte]

I've been thinking about the reality of 2G of RAM, and have an idea to address it that is a bit counter-intuitive. 1. Split the already small 16G SSD into two partitions. One for frugal install and one for appimages (or perhaps other standalone apps). Then fstab a folder (maybe on the desktop named Apps) to that parition. The idea being keeping the appimages on a seperate partition will mean less loads into RAM on startup, and also your pupsaves will be smaller. Use conky to monitor RAM utilization whenever you launch appimages. (hopefully when you close them it will dump back out of RAM?). If so, then you'll find out quickly what apps you can run and if you can run a few of them simultaneously or not. IDK, do other people do this? Am I overlooking something? I honestly don't know much about appimages or standalone programs,

I know it's a bit counterintutive because in general appimages are larger than other ways of getting the program and also because the SSD is small to begin with, but it seems like being able to manually load and unload them from RAM would be helpful here. I also like the idea of keeping them on a seperate partition for purpose of accessing them from several different Linux OS's, and always being able to have your favorite apps as soon as you install an OS with an fstab entry.

[wizard]

@trawglodyte

The idea being keeping the appimages on a separate partition will mean less loads into RAM on startup, and also your pupsaves will be smaller.

Nope, not going to help you, take a look at this table:viewtopic.php?t=10453

Appimages are portable apps and are not loaded at startup (unless you want) and are not included in the save file/folder.

Zram really helps low ram systems as well as using "pfix=nocopy" in grub.

The thing that helps low ram systems the most is adding more ram.

I also like the idea of keeping them on a seperate partition for purpose of accessing them from several different Linux OS's, and always being able to have your favorite apps as soon as you install an OS with an fstab entry.

A good plan.

wizard

[trawglodyte]

Nope, not going to help you, take a look at this table:viewtopic.php?t=10453

Appimages are portbale apps and are not loaded at startup (unless you want) and are not included in the save file/folder.

That link says they aren't loaded into RAM on startup but that they ARE included in the filesystem. If you put them in a seperate partition, mounted with fstab, then they are not included in the filesystem. But, yah, I'm still not quite wrapping my head around how they're in the file-system and not loaded at startup. I guess our apps use more RAM when we launch them that just sitting there in the file-system (which does load into RAM on startup).

I can tell you this for a fact. I have several partitions mounted. One for example is a partition labeled "Videos" mounted at /root/Videos. If that was just a folder with those Videos in it, my pupsave would be way bigger! In my other Linux OS's the same partition is mounted at /home/Videos. My /home partitions on those Linux OS's are always very small because none of my files are there, only mount points. Yet I go to /home/Videos and click it just like a folder and have all my Videos, save directly to it from OBS or whatnot just like it was a folder in my directory. I dunno. I'm just gonna make a partition for AppImages and try it with what I got to figure this out while I'm waiting for the ASUS chromebox to get here.

[wizard]

That link says they aren't loaded into RAM on startup but that they ARE included in the filesystem. If you put them in a seperate partition, mounted with fstab, then they are not included in the filesystem. But, yah, I'm still not quite wrapping my head around how they're in the file-system and not loaded at startup. I guess our apps use more RAM when we launch them that just sitting there in the file-system (which does load into RAM on startup).

They are only included in the file system when you run them.

wizard

[dancytron]

Nope, not going to help you, take a look at this table:viewtopic.php?t=10453

Appimages are portbale apps and are not loaded at startup (unless you want) and are not included in the save file/folder.

That link says they aren't loaded into RAM on startup but that they ARE included in the filesystem. If you put them in a seperate partition, mounted with fstab, then they are not included in the filesystem. But, yah, I'm still not quite wrapping my head around how they're in the file-system and not loaded at startup. I guess our apps use more RAM when we launch them that just sitting there in the file-system (which does load into RAM on startup).

I can tell you this for a fact. I have several partitions mounted. One for example is a partition labeled "Videos" mounted at /root/Videos. If that was just a folder with those Videos in it, my pupsave would be way bigger! In my other Linux OS's the same partition is mounted at /home/Videos. My /home partitions on those Linux OS's are always very small because none of my files are there, only mount points. Yet I go to /home/Videos and click it just like a folder and have all my Videos, save directly to it from OBS or whatnot just like it was a folder in my directory. I dunno. I'm just gonna make a partition for AppImages and try it with what I got to figure this out while I'm waiting for the ASUS chromebox to get here.

In Puppy like operating systems, the way people usually set that up is to create a folder "videos" on /mnt/home or the Dog equivalent, set the permissions to give spot the needed access if you want to be able to download to it from your browser, and symlink it to /root/ or whereever which you can do in Rox filer or in the terminal.

[trawglodyte]

In Puppy like operating systems, the way people usually set that up is to create a folder "videos" on /mnt/home or the Dog equivalent, set the permissions to give spot the needed access if you want to be able to download to it from your browser, and symlink it to /root/ or whereever which you can do in Rox filer or in the terminal.

Yes, and that is fine. And that is within your file directory and anything you put in it will be included in your save file/folder. What I'm saying is rather than keeping it in your file directory, make a seperate partition. Keep the Apps in a seperate partition OUTSIDE of your file directory. The only thing saved in your file directory is an empty folder that is used as a mount point to that partition. This isn't for everyone, and I have to try it out a bit, but I do know your save file will be smaller and it's particularly beneficial if you have more than one Puppy or other Linux OS on your system. Well, for files anyway, I need to test it out with standalone apps, appimages, and the like. There is also inherent security that you probably will not lose anything you put there even if you brick your OS somehow.

[wizard]

@trawglodyte

If that was just a folder with those Videos in it, my pupsave would be way bigger! In my other Linux OS's the same partition is mounted at /home/Videos. My /home partitions on those Linux OS's are always very small because none of my files are there, only mount points. Yet I go to /home/Videos and click it just like a folder and have all my Videos, save directly to it from OBS or whatnot just like it was a folder in my directory

Just to clarify what Dan & I have saId, ANYTHING stored in /root or its sub-directories will be included in the save file/folder (but it does not get loaded into ram). If you don't want that, just put it anywhere else.

Seems you can accomplish the same thing quoted above with Puppy, but it could be in /mnt or /mnt/home if you like.

wizard

[trawglodyte]

@wizard I had to test it to know for sure! hahaha. I'll bet you can guess how I did it....
Yup, I cloned my BookwormPup, and deleted the folder I was booted from to see what happened. You're spot on, it went for a bit, but Firefox didn't want to launch and apps started disappearing. 100% confirmed, even in pupmode13 there is some interaction between savefile on disk and RAM/CPU, particularly when launching apps.

[bigpup]

/mnt/home is not in the save or in the normal file directory as far as it's contents being loaded into ram or saved.

In fact /mnt/home is not even a location under /mnt in the operating file system until a save file/folder is placed on a partition and Puppy boots using it.

/mnt/home is the top layer of the partition the save is located on.

It is the displayed contents of that specific partition.

Usually the Puppy frugal install directory and the save is on this partition, but it could only be the partition the save is on.
Example:
A Puppy CD install is usually putting it's save on the internal drive of the computer.
So the partition the save is located on is /mnt/home to this Puppy.

[trawglodyte]

/mnt/home is not in the save or in the normal file directory as far as it's contents being loaded into ram or saved.

Oh, yah.... I apologize to @dancytron what he or she said went right over my head. So, yah, for my little project with the chromebox which will likely be only one OS, putting appimages in /mnt/home would get them outside the file directory and be more efficient use of hard drive space than a separate partition. Another folder on the same partition would be a good option too. Linux does have an experimental feature which allows you to fstab a folder on a partition. I'm not sure if older kernels can do it or not.

[trawglodyte]

This site looks a bit sketchy, but ASUS Chromebox CN60 with the "big" processor for $25, free shipping if you buy two of them! This is gonna get out of hand.

[wizard]

@trawglodyte

Keep in mind that with Puppy you can use Menu>Filesystem>PMount instead of fstab to mount local drives/partitions.

pmount.jpg (18.82 KiB) Viewed 233 times

You can also use a simple mount script placed in /root/startup to mount network drives at boot. For instance, my videos are all on a Puppy file server (old single core laptop w/2tb USB drive). With this, any device, computer, tablet or phone on the LAN can access the video library from anywhere in the house.

You could potentially use your Chromebox for the same thing. Set it up with VNC to remotely administer it and run it as a "headless" file server.

wizard

[wizard]

@trawglodyte

This site looks a bit sketchy,

About as bad as they get, would not go there.

wizard

[trawglodyte]

With this, any device, computer, tablet or phone on the LAN can access the video library from anywhere in the house.

Networking is on the bucket-list, but I don't know if I'll get to it before, well, you know.... I run out of time. I still barely know what I'm doing with Linux and I've been learning as fast as I can. Also, have barely stuck my toe into Python and I need to do that.

[wizard]

@trawglodyte

Setting up a simple Puppy file server is easy with the gui tools our devs have included. Forgot to mention with my video server, my TV's that have the $20 ONN Walmart Android box can also play those videos.

wizard

[bigpup]

Keep in mind that when a save file/folder is made and booted using it.
/mnt/home is always mounted and can not be unmounted.