Fossa64-Small

[ozsouth]

I'm wondering what is the lowest spec PC that can successfully run this pup. Using pfix=nocopy, I wonder if a 1Gb system with a Pentium Dual-Core cpu is up to it? Anyone run Fossa64-Small on something really old?

[amethyst]

I'm wondering what is the lowest spec PC that can successfully run this pup. Using pfix=nocopy, I wonder if a 1Gb system with a Pentium Dual-Core cpu is up to it? Anyone run Fossa64-Small on something really old?

I've got a dual-core cpu 2GB system from 2007. I run all my Pups (well mostly Jammy32 and Fossa Fire based on your Fossa small) with the latest browsers and without swap whilst doing lots of streaming. The system you refer to with 1GB ram should easily do so too in my view with a manual swapfile or swap partition (zram swap does not work all that well on very low resourced machines in my experience).

[Jasper]

@ozsouth

Peebee has a 32bit version of Fossapup here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pu ... -20.12.htm

Are you asking for feedback on your specific build?

[ozsouth]

@Jasper - specifically this pup - Fossa64-Small. v5f has had 158 downloads in 2 months, so I was wondering just how old a machine it would successfully run on.

[amethyst]

Well, one can actually make any of the Puppy's run lighter by disabling bloat like Conky, etc. without actually deleting or remastering anything OR just not using some stuff. I think the video accelerating stuff (like 3d rendering) has also been removed with this small version which may or may not be a good thing depending on your hardware capabilities. As far as frugal installs go, the best thing you can do for better performances for older hardware with low resources is to re-compress ALL your sfs files in the gzip format. That's the first thing I do with all my Puppys on my old machines. The main concern with older machines is the handling of the huge internet browsers and resource heavy web sites not so much the operating system one use. Puppys are light on resources in general, it's the applications that one use that makes the difference.

[proebler]

TWO-in-ONE ?!
A most surprising test result with the fossapup64-9.5-sml-5f.iso.

Boot method : isobooter on USB, with the following menu.lst entry:

title fossapup64-9.5-sml-5
partnew (hd0,3) 0x00 (hd0,0)/fossapup64-9.5-sml-5f.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 (hd0,0)/fossapup64-9.5-sml-5f.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /vmlinuz pmedia=cd psavemark=1 pfix=fsck
initrd /initrd.gz

Computers used 2x (very similar) HP Elitebook 6930p, one with intel Core 2 vPro, the other with intel Centrino vPro.
The Core 2 has 3GB of RAM, the Centrino has 4GB.
According to sysinfo, the only difference between the two is the version and date of the BIOS:
Core2
▶—— BASE SYSTEM ——◀

PC Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
Product Name: HP EliteBook 6930p

Motherboard Vendor: Hewlett-Packard
Product Name: 30DB

BIOS Vendor: Hewlett-Packard
Version: 68PCU Ver. F.16
Release Date: 12/08/2009

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz
Min/Max Speed: 800/2534 MHz
Current Speed of Core 0:2534 MHz, 1:1600 MHz
Core Count: 2
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Centrino
▶—— BASE SYSTEM ——◀

PC Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
Product Name: HP EliteBook 6930p

Motherboard Vendor: Hewlett-Packard
Product Name: 30DB

BIOS Vendor: Hewlett-Packard
Version: 68PCU Ver. F.1A
Release Date: 12/13/2010

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz
Min/Max Speed: 800/2534 MHz
Current Speed of Core 0:1600 MHz, 1:2534 MHz
Core Count: 2

I started with the Core 2.
It booted to a very sparse desktop, which I recognized as the one for Cloudpup-Fossa64.
I was a bit surprised, but why not, it was after all a Fossa64 based system.
Cloudpup-Fossa64 comes with no menu, you have to know how to get to open Rox and other applications.
I do know how to do that, so took the following screenshot:

FossaPup-sml-5f-aka-Cloudpup-Core2-3GB.jpg (79.27 KiB) Viewed 807 times

I then changed to the Centrino machine, booting from the same USB.
.. what the heck (!) was my reaction, when it booted to a quite different desktop.
I rebooted, got the same result and took this screenshot (terminal used to open 'tas'):

FossaPup-sml-5f_Centrino.jpg (113.76 KiB) Viewed 807 times

How is this possible ???

[ozsouth]

@proebler - this doesn't look at all like v5f - looks like a savefile fron another pup has been activated.

[greengeek]

I'm wondering what is the lowest spec PC that can successfully run this pup. Using pfix=nocopy, I wonder if a 1Gb system with a Pentium Dual-Core cpu is up to it? Anyone run Fossa64-Small on something really old?

Firstly - I am not certain if I am running 5f (Defnly running v5, but dont remember seeing "5f")
Secondly - I did not boot with nocopy.

System seems to run ok on my Acer eMachines NAV51 (mfg 2009) Atom N450 (single core) Netbook with 1GB ram.
Running 6GB swap partition from usb.

Loaded Palemoon (latest) as any other browser chokes.

Free before loading Palemoon:

free.jpg (15 KiB) Viewed 788 times

free after loading Palemoon:

free_After_Palemoon_Load.jpg (17.81 KiB) Viewed 788 times

And here is my system report:

SysReport.txt

(9.32 KiB) Downloaded 18 times

Let me know if there are any specific tests you would like me to run...

[proebler]

@proebler - this doesn't look at all like v5f - looks like a savefile fron another pup has been activated.

Not a savefile, but the main .sfs in both cases !
One a 'stray' (Cloudpup) that was left behind, the other a valid one for FriendlyFossa.
I'm not going mad after all.
Beware when booting like that.
Thanks.

THE_Fossa64-sml.jpg (75.11 KiB) Viewed 765 times

[ozsouth]

@greengeek - that Atom N450 takes the prize (for now at least) - cpu benchmark is 203
.

Screenshot 2024-12-17 20.50.16.png (442.21 KiB) Viewed 763 times

[greengeek]

I'm wondering what is the lowest spec PC that can successfully run this pup. Using pfix=nocopy, I wonder if a 1Gb system with a Pentium Dual-Core cpu is up to it? Anyone run Fossa64-Small on something really old?

One thing I don't understand is why - when I boot this on my 1GB Netbook - the sdb2 usb stick that I boot from shows up as /initrd/mnt/dev_save.
What am I missing?
The usb drive icon has a greyed out mounted icon in it's corner.
I dont think this happens on machines with more RAM
(will have to double check..)

dev_save_what.png (287.96 KiB) Viewed 726 times

[mikewalsh]

I'm wondering what is the lowest spec PC that can successfully run this pup. Using pfix=nocopy, I wonder if a 1Gb system with a Pentium Dual-Core cpu is up to it? Anyone run Fossa64-Small on something really old?

@ozsouth :-

While I can't speak from personal experience with this particular Pup - my "smallest" machine now has 16GB RAM - I remember I used to successfully run PhilB's original Fossapup64 9.5, from DVD, on my mate's old ex-Vista system (approx 2006/7.....with a Pentium Dual-Core E2180 @ 2.0 GHz, and just 2 GB DDR2.

It acquitted itself admirably. I ran Fossa from DVD, and ran applications from a USB thumbdrive full of portable apps.....necessitated by the elderly BIOS on his machine, which didn't recognize newer thumbdrives as 'boot' drives, due to the firmware on later drives advertising themselves as "USB-HDD". This confused the hell out of the BIOS, so it simply ignored anything it found like this; it just couldn't 'see' them.

OS from optical disc & 'portable' apps from USB thumbdrive, however, it seemed more than happy with. Worked for me (and my mate.....a self-confessed "tech dinosaur" if ever there was one!).

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

[ozsouth]

@greengeek - if you use pfix=nocopy , that is where system looks for data. Also, a savefile would be similar.
@mikewalsh - yours & amethyst's (E2160?) are about the same - 683 cpubenchmark. Nice to know they work well too.

[bigpup]

One thing I don't understand is why - when I boot this on my 1GB Netbook - the sdb2 usb stick that I boot from shows up as /initrd/mnt/dev_save.
What am I missing?
The usb drive icon has a greyed out mounted icon in it's corner.
I dont think this happens on machines with more RAM
(will have to double check..)

/initrd/mnt/dev_save is actually the partition the save is on. This is how initrd identifies it in it's mnt directory.

Usually, in the operating file system, a new mount point is added /mnt/home as the mount point of the save, but I guess this is not in Fossa64-Small.
It is still /initrd/mnt/dev_save, but in operating file system, it will have also /mnt/home/
Actually /mnt/home/ gets made, when a save is used. (it is usually a symbolic link to /initrd/mnt/dev_save)
/mnt/home/ is always the partition the save is stored on.

Not sure what needs fixed so Rox will show /initrd/mnt/dev_save as /mnt/home

When a save is made and stored on a partition.
Boot using the save.
That partition is automatically mounted as a hard mount and cannot be unmounted.
That is identified by the The drive partition icon having a greyed out mounted icon in it's corner.

[greengeek]

I needed to make a pdf copy of my passport so I made a utility to convert my scanned pngs to individual pdfs, then combine them into one pdf document.

Based on Peasypdf but I removed unnecessary functionality and added in a couple of necessary lib functions that were missing from Fossa64 Small.

See here:
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 86#p139986