How to install a Puppy version in a Toshiba satellite pro 4600? with 512mb

[NarakuITA]

Hello everyone, I am writing to you because I was advised to try this operating system. I have tried others and more or less they worked, but not completely.
I am trying to revive my old Toshiba satellite pro 4600 with 512mb of ram with Windows 2000.
I am not a Linux expert and I would need your help to install Puppy Linux. I need to be guided, step by step, precisely because of my inexperience, but confident in learning. I have already created an installation CD. I downloaded the BookwormPup32 23.12 32bit version.
However, unlike other distributions, it does not start. Maybe I should use the 32bit S15Pup32 22.12?
I await help. Many thanks!

[cobaka]

@NarakuITA

I hope we can get a Puppy running on your memory-strapped laptop - I see "toshy" is maxed-out with 512 MiB RAM.
I believe that's your problem. The BookWork iso is slightly more than 512MiB. The whole Puppy OS runs in RAM. We need to find an ISO that will fit your RAM.

Before that - let's test your present method of creating a bootable CD. We need to know the problem lies in the size of "toshy's" RAM, and not the CD. Do you have a PC (or friend with a PC) that has at least one GiB RAM?
If 'yes' then try to boot that 'other' PC using your CD. You'll need to know the key to re-assign the boot device (i.e. to CD, not HDD).

Slacko-7 may boot - the ISO is a little under 400MiB - it may work with "toshy".. Get advice from others here on the forum. There are even smaller Puppies. I'm not well informed about them. The smallest I run is 'Friendly Bionic' and this is a little over 512MiB including the browser. The hardware is an "EEE" PC/laptop. Sub-1.8GHz clock. I think you may find the answer to running a Puppy in 512MiB on this forum.

When you return, don't forget to say how you made your bootable CD.
I came here in 2017. Then I used Windows to create the bootable ISO image.
Now I do that in Puppy Linux. Certainly Puppy will give you the best chance of running an OS on "toshy".

That's all for the moment. Don't forget to tell us how you get on.

Cobaka

[bigpup]

I have tried others and more or less they worked, but not completely.

What other operating systems have you tried?

Looking at the specs for this computer.
It shows a Pentium lll for the CPU.

Could you confirm that.

If it is using this CPU that is going to also be a problem.

One of the very older versions of Puppy is going to have to be suggested to try.

S15pup, BookwormPup and the newer or newest versions of Puppy, are not designed for that old a CPU.

[NarakuITA]

So it has a 750mhz processor, RAM expanded to a maximum of 512mb, Compact Flash disk for faster reading and writing. Systems tested Tony Core, but too complex for a beginner, but it runs like a charm. Slitaz, it works great but I have encountered problems with the installation of some drivers and other things. Q4OS is fine, but it is too slow. Just think that for the installation alone it took me more than an hour. Problems encountered with the installation of the floppy disk, and problems with video playback, especially DVDs. Under Windows 2000 no problems.
Of course the CD is bootable and I burned it with Nero.
To boot it I use a floppy disk bootloader.

[wizard]

@NarakuITA

Have had these Puppy versions running on low resource laptops such as yours:

Lucid 5.28
Precise 5.71
Slacko 6.3

wizard

[mikeslr]

Puppys which will run in Low-RAM computers, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 47#p100547

That thread reveals that some newer Puppys have functioned with 1 Gb present; which doesn't mean 512 Mbs will be sufficient. I'd try jammyPup32, viewtopic.php?p=104015#p104015. If that doesn't work, I'd try some of peebee's 32-bit Puppys available from here, https://sourceforge.net/projects/pb-gh-releases/files/. As the above thread OP indicates, dpup-stretch, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=319 should work. But, obtaining a useful web-browser may be problematic.

As amethyst noted on that thread, adding a swap will help. I don't know anything about running from a CD: haven't had to do that in 20 years. But if you can get to desktop when you shut down the first time one of the options you have is to create a swapfile. [Rule of thumb 'twice-RAM', but I'd suggest 2 Gbs]. There's also a command you can use to create a swapfile. But, off hand, I don't know it.

I also do know if/which boot-commands work when you run from a CD. From a hard-drive/USB-Key, you can add the command pfix=nocopy. Puppys boot-slower, but less RAM is used to just hold files. IIRC, Puppys run from CDs will write changes to the CD if they are 'left-open' during creation. Leaving them open should also enable you to edit their boot-commands.

[NarakuITA]

Before trying other versions, I would like to show you what happens:
When I insert the CD and boot it with Plop Boot Manager from the floppy disk, here is the screen that appears:

This is the following screen. It gets stuck like this. Nothing happens.

[Wiz57]

No idea what's up with your grub4dos screenshots, but looks like grub4dos is looking for menu.lst on the CD??? Anyway, another option is to search
through the Puppy Archives from this link viewforum.php?f=195 specifically look for a Windows installer
called SlackoPuppy6.3.exe, download that and copy it to your Windows 2000 drive. Then from Win2K just click and run the Windows Slacko installer,
by Nory by the way, which will install grub4dos on your Windows drive, install Slacko 6.3 as a "frugal" installation. If you have trouble finding
that EXE installer, let me know, I'll see what I can dig up. This installs just like any other Windows program, even leaves an uninstall option in
the Start Menu. When you restart your computer, you should be offered a choice to boot Win2K or Slacko Puppy! Boot Slacko, and see if it can
run suitably on the old PC. We can assist setting up a puppy swap file once you get it going. When you first shutdown Slacko you will be given
the chance to create a savefile, handy for saving your settings and such.
Wiz

[NarakuITA]

No idea what's up with your grub4dos screenshots, but looks like grub4dos is looking for menu.lst on the CD??? Anyway, another option is to search
through the Puppy Archives from this link viewforum.php?f=195 specifically look for a Windows installer
called SlackoPuppy6.3.exe, download that and copy it to your Windows 2000 drive. Then from Win2K just click and run the Windows Slacko installer,
by Nory by the way, which will install grub4dos on your Windows drive, install Slacko 6.3 as a "frugal" installation. If you have trouble finding
that EXE installer, let me know, I'll see what I can dig up. This installs just like any other Windows program, even leaves an uninstall option in
the Start Menu. When you restart your computer, you should be offered a choice to boot Win2K or Slacko Puppy! Boot Slacko, and see if it can
run suitably on the old PC. We can assist setting up a puppy swap file once you get it going. When you first shutdown Slacko you will be given
the chance to create a savefile, handy for saving your settings and such.
Wiz

I no longer have Windows 2000 installed. I currently have Q4OS which is extremely slow, very slow. So I cannot do the procedure you told me to do.

[wiak]

I hate to say it, but you might find it easier to make an install of antiX on a usb stick, and temporarily using the boot tools that provides and documents quite well to make an initial antiX install to hard drive. Maybe an older antiX release for that old machine. Then easy to add a Puppy frugal install for use with the antiX grub bootloader (and can delete antiX thereafter).

That's the kind of way I myself usually do such things. On more powerful machines I install Linux Mint xfce and use its grub for everything else. On older hardware I use the likes of antiX if fossapup with frugalpup install utility too slow or dated. But I do think youd need to use oldish antiX release and I havent checked recently what they have archived.

AntiX is pretty good for this sort of initial install. Worth trying out as a distro anyway, though never quite been what I wanted.

[hikohan]

Run Puppy Precise or Lucid (32bit).

Meet basic text or music player utilities.

[mikewalsh]

@NarakuITA

Have had these Puppy versions running on low resource laptops such as yours:

Lucid 5.28
Precise 5.71
Slacko 6.3

wizard

I, too, was also thinking along the lines of Precise 5.7.1.....but what, really, does the OP see themselves using this machine for? Gone are the days when such hardware would happily run a full-featured "frugal" Puppy PLUS a decent browser PLUS a few user-installed packages.

Software has ballooned in not only its abilities but also its requirements. A modern browser - even a lightweight one like PaleMoon - will easily gobble up that small amount of RAM by itself with just a couple of tabs open (and you still need the Puppy itself running in the background for the browser to be able to run anyway).

Minimum specs we tend to be happy discussing/making recommendations for these days is around 2-4 GB RAM.......in 'extreme' cases, perhaps 1 GB. But 512 MB has been below the radar for some years now...

Even a decade ago, when I joined the community, 512 MB was very definitely 'bottom-end' bare minimum THEN.

Mike.

[janugsa]

slacko-5.8.10_r7862.iso 2019
Sailor Enceladus created.
No browser included. You have to get it separately.

I use it on my Toshiba Satellite pro 4200 laptop. Cpu 550MHz, Ram 256MB.

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/p7599c75b8l19/5.8CE

Frugally installed on HDD. Grub4dos starts it, needs a swap partition.

I tried NewMoon sse 29.4.6 browser, but it is slow, so I don't use browser.

Internet radio listening or youtube (360p) watching with special programs.

Your laptop is a little more powerful.
If you boot from CD, you don't need Plop Boot Manager.

Text translated with DeepL.com (free version).

[fernan]

My choice , in the 2 older machinesI have, is Tahrpup32 and Bionicpup32.

To boot from a CD, download the ISO file, and copy the ISO to the CD with the ISO option in your CD burning app, not copying the files . It should boot without issues. If not, I'd burn the CD again.

In slow machines, I burn the CD, but then I copy all the puppy files to the hard disk, at / . This way, Puppy finds the files on the HD and boot faster reading from those files instead of reading the CD.

[wiak]

Of course there are several older Puppy releases that should work very well on the target machine, but I was referring to the specific problem of getting a suitable boot loader (such as grub) onto the machine, which is the main problem really. Without that you simply cannot boot any distro... As I said, frugalpup utility may be fine to do that job for you, but if not, I really feel AntiX boot loader installation utility will help you greatly. Don't be afraid to use other distros to help you out if that proves easiest!