BionicPup32 NONPAE

[chrish061]

Hi all ,
I downloaded an iso bionicpup32 19.03k ( no md5sum available) from archive.org and wrote the iso to cd................. but cd it will not boot???

Where can i get hold of a good nonpae bionicpup iso for an old laptop?

Regards, Chris.

[bigpup]

What is the computer?
Make and model?
Specs if you know them?

[mikeslr]

Hi chrish061,

Please tell us the make and model of your computer and whether it has and can boot from a USB-port.
There are only a very few old computers that actually require a 'no-pae' kernel. Some old computers were manufactured capable of handling more than 4 Gbs of RAM, but were 'crippled' by not having the 'flag' to do so set by default. [Don't ask me to justify the manufacturer's reasoning]. Such computers can use pae-kernels if they are booted with the argument 'force-pae'. Adding that argument is much easier if the boot-loader is on a write-able USB-Stick than on a non-write-able CD.
We can provide the details of how to work if you only can boot from a CD. But there is little reason to if that not your only option.

You can obtain an 'old' version of bionicpup32 nopae from here, https://archive.org/download/bionicpup3 ... .138nonpae. But you will be better off in the long run if you have the option of using later versions.

[bigpup]

When it boots to the boot loader menu.

Select the entry to use and select edit.
Now in the edit screen.
You could try adding forcepae to the end of the linux line of the entry.
linux /vmlinuz pmedia=cd forcepae

Select the indicated key to boot that now edited entry.

Do you know how to enter the edit screen and use it?

[chrish061]

Taa for the fast replies.
The laptop is Acer Travelmate with Intel Pentium M 710 .... think its 1.4Ghz. and RAM is only 512 MB.
When booted from CD it gives the error .... something like... "Warning PAE disabled ..use parameter "forcepae" to enable AT you own risk. This kernel requires the feature not present on your cpu, Unable to boot, use appropriate kernel.

Thanks to Bigpup and MikeSir have booted with pmedia=cd forcepae but now get:
cant run "plogin' : no space left on device .............does this mean there is no space on the HDD?? but there is 13GB free space.
Any ideas pse.
Cheers, Chris061

[chrish061]

sorry 2 omissions its an Acer Travelmate 4050 and doen not seem to be able to boot from USB in bios.

[bigpup]

cant run "plogin' : no space left on device

Never seen this error booting from Puppy Linux on a CD.

Maybe a clue, if you can tell us, step by step, what you do, to boot from the CD install of Bionicpup32?

I have seen problems with CD installs, if you use too high a burn speed, to burn the ISO image to the CD.
Use no higher than 8 for setting.

There is a chance you got a bad download of the Bionicpup32 ISO and or a bad burn to the CD.
Maybe try a fresh new download of the ISO and CD burn install.

May be better to get the Bionicpup32 ISO from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pu ... onicpup32/

[mikeslr]

Sorry chrish061 for sending you on a wild-goose chase. Now that we know what computer you have, if this is the model, https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_ ... 172MT.html than it uses the Dothan processor which --if I read the following correctly-- didn't support pae before the Pentium M 720. https://www.cpu-world.com/Cores/Dothan.html. If so, you will need the old version I linked to previously; at least to get started.
Once you can boot into ANY puppy, there are tools which make it easy to modify it, or any other Puppy. Puppys are modular builds, and swapping kernels is easy. So, for example, you could easily decompress the latest bionicpup32, swap in the latest nopae kernel --or the one from the nopae bionicpup32-- and rebuilt it burning a new CD. Or even easier: setup booting a nopae Puppy from your hard-drive.

Frankly, I couldn't find any information about how to boot your model computer from a USB-port.

Keep us informed about your status. If for any reason you run into problems booting the 'older' version of bionicpup, there are other Puppys we could recommend to get you started.

[mikewalsh]

Well, guys.....if the 4050 doesn't natively support USB booting in the BIOS, would Plop do the trick?

https://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux/live/usb.html

Worth investigating, I should say....

---------------------------------------

Just to correct what t'other Mike said about not supporting PAE, um.....that's not strictly true. Bigpup's on the right track here.

Intel built two architectural generations of this particular chip; "Banias".....followed about 15 months later by "Dothan". Now; all CPUs have a section of their internal cache that imparts CPU information to any utility that queries it.....the best known of which is probably CPU-Z, from https://www.cpuid.com/ .

Both "Banias" AND "Dothan" do, in fact, support PAE. But to CPU querying utilities, "Banias" doesn't.....because for some inexplicable reason, Intel made the daft decision to 'hide' that fact from the internal CPU 'info cache'. So because the 'info cache' in "Banias" processors doesn't report the PAE capability, CPU info utilities report that the CPU is, in fact, "no-PAE".

Which it isn't. It's a bloody silly arrangement, and one which has caused a LOT of head-scratching over the years.

The 720M - which Mike mentioned - was the very first release of the "Dothan" architecture revision that corrected the issue.

-----------------------------------------

The way around this in Linux-powered machines is, fortunately, quite simple. All you need to do is to add, to the end of the kernel line in your boot stanza, the option

Code: Select all

 -- forcepae

Make sure to leave a space between the end of the previous entry and the '--' at the start of this one.....and also between the '--' and the 'f' of 'forcepae'. That's all it usually takes to persuade a "Banias" Pentium M to boot a 'PAE'-enabled distro. But the others will have to explain how to do this from a 'LiveCD'; it's so many years since I booted Puppy from one of those I've completely forgotten how to do it!

Hope that 'clarifies' things a wee bit!

Mike.

[williams2]

This is correct:

You could try adding forcepae to the end of the linux line of the entry

This does not do anything:

add, to the end of the kernel line in your boot stanza, the option -- forcepae

-- forcepae does not do anything. The kernel ignores everything after --
That's what -- does. Items before -- are treated as options (switches.)
Items after -- are ignored by the kernel.

The documentation for the Ubuntu installer for the grub boot loader says to boot the Ubuntu live optical disc by adding forcepae -- forcepae to the end of the line.

The first forcepae is treated by the kernel as a directive.

The second forcepae is ignored by the kernel, but if you install the boot loader using the Ubuntu installer, it sees the second forcepae which tells the Ubuntu installer to add forcepae to the kernel options in the grub.cfg file.

-- forcepae is an option only for the Ubuntu boot loader installer. It is ignored by the kernel.
AFAIK, Puppy does not have the Ubuntu boot loader installer installed, so Puppy ignores -- forcepae

The cpus in most computers do not need the forcepae kernel option.

[mikewalsh]

@williams2 :-

A-ha. Thanks for the clarification. About time I found out that I've been dispensing incorrect info for the last few years! I've never needed to use it myself, yet always thought it looked "out-of-place", somehow, given that no other Puppy boot option uses that "--" anywhere.....

The cpus in most computers do not need the forcepae kernel option.

Quite true. But the "Banias" generation of the Pentium M was something of a unique case.....and is, to the best of my knowledge, the only time in Intel's history that the company ever did something like this.

There's still enough of the things kicking around, however, that the law of averages says we're going to get questions regarding these CPUs from time to time.....

(*shrug*)

Mike.

[ahoppin]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I wonder if the OP is having trouble with this Internet Archive download:

https://archive.org/details/bionicpup3219.03k3.18.138nonpae

The ISO from that link won't work for me either. Downloaded twice, burned twice, burns check out 100%, but the computer acts like there's no CD in the drive. Other CDs boot fine.

It might be a corrupt ISO, but there's no way to tell, as the Internet Archive page has no md5 or other check files.

I found some other non-PAE bionic32 ISO files here:

https://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_Upup_Bionic_Beaver

They don't have any check files either.

What's more, the non-pae ISOs all seem to be Hungarian puppies. For example,

BionicPup-8_32_hu_Pmoon_K3.14.56_NoPae.iso

I have nothing against Hungarian but I don't speak it. How do you say "sit" and "stay" in Hungarian?

Looking for non-PAE puppers for an experiment with a couple of veteran AMD K6-2 processors, which don't speak PAE. So far the most recent pup I've found that will boot on them is Wary 5.5.

[rockedge]

I have done some experimentation some time ago using a No-PAE kernel I compiled by swapping this kernel into Tahr Xenial and Bionic 32 bit systems. I have gotten all three to boot and run on a 2002 IBM T-42 laptop

It's a full real time kernel. https://rockedge.org/kernels/data/Kerne ... bb.tar.bz2

[ahoppin]

Thanks, Rockedge, downloaded to check out.

I'm surprised that you needed a non-PAE kernel for a 2002 T42. What processor does it have? Thinkwiki says that all but the slowest T42s had a Dothan Pentium M processor, which has PAE. The 1.5 GHz T42s had a Banias, which I've read will boot with a PAE kernel if you give the forcepae boot flag.

I'm pretty sure that the AMD K6-2 was non-PAE, so I'll give your kernel a try on it.

I think that there was also a more or less official non-PAE version of Tahr.

It's getting tough to find Linux distributions that still support 32-bit processors at all, let alone non-PAE.

[williams2]

t might be a corrupt ISO, but there's no way to tell, as the Internet Archive page has no md5 or other check files.

You can test ISO files using 7z, like 7z t puppy.iso or 7za t puppy.iso

The results of the test might or might not be useful.

[rockedge]

will boot with a PAE kernel if you give the forcepae boot flag.

yes I can use forcepae to start the T42 with many PAE kernels.

This IBM laptop has no hard drive or battery anymore but will start up booting from USB drives/sticks

It loves that No-PAE Tahr6+ but also performed well with Xenial and then Bionic32 with the No-PAE kernel I compiled for it.
Actually this machine might be older than 2002. I was given it because the owner thought it was dead.
Turns out it isn't dead.....but limping a bit and still going. The IBM keyboard is one of the best I've had on a laptop and it is overall well built. The later T-42's aren't the same.

When I built a Puppy with woof-CE I would test it out with the T-42 among the first machines. I figured if the OS will boot on a machine with no battery and no HDD and needs forcepae on the kernel command line that the OS should be pretty versatile.

[ahoppin]

An update on progress with this experiment, mostly for anyone else keen to try.

To review, I'm tinkering with a couple of veteran Super 7 boards with AMD K6-2 processors, one 300 MHz and one 500 MHz.

The idea is to answer the question:

Q: "Are these arthritic old guys are still useful with a modern light Linux distribution?"

A: No.

Q: "OK, with an OLD light Linux distro?"

A: Yes, with limitations.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Forget Bionic, even with a non-PAE kernel. The reason is below.

Any of the following Puppy breeds will work:

Puppy 2.16*
Puppy 4.1.2 Retro with kernel 2.6.21.7
Puppy 4.31 (not 2016 update)
Puppy Lucid 5.2.5 (not 5.2.8 or 5.2.8.7)
Puppy Wary 5.5

*Puppy 2.16 choked on one of my video cards, but worked great on the other, an S3 Vierge.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

For light server use, without X, any of the above pups will suit. DSL 4.4.10 also looks promising.

For desktop use, Puppy 2.16 is surprisingly snappy at 500 MHz. I couldn't test it at 300 MHz. You won't be doing any but the most basic web browsing, though. The default is Seamonkey 1.0.8 which will roll over and play dead for the modern web. You can try updating it, but you'll run into the problem described below.

I don't recommend any of the later pups for desktop use with a K6-2, unless you have a lot of patience.

However, if you have a K6-III, or especially a K6-III+, you might try Wary 5.5. Those CPUs are faster for a given clock speed, and also overclock nicely. I've run a III+/450 at 600 MHz, and it never broke a sweat.

It's sacrilege to say it, but the best choice for K6 desktop use is Windows 98. That's what the K6 was optimized for.

THE GORY DETAILS:

AMD K6-2, K6-III, and K6-III+ processors all need a Linux kernel before about 2.6.35.

Non-PAE isn't enough; it has to also avoid the Intel cmov opcode, of which the K6 knoweth naught.

Some distros might boot to a desktop, but you find that some programs, including most (all?) post-2012 web browsers, crash with an "illegal instruction" error.

You might be able to compile a more modern distro yourself, leaving out PAE and cmov. That's above my pay grade, however.

[rvqx2]

Yes, it`s a pity there is no `nonpae-version` of bionicpup. My best results are with pup tahr 6.0.5 (includes vlc, but it is hard to find) and pup xenial 7.5. If you want a modern o.s. Antix 22 base is probably the best, it runs on my 32 bit mono-core cpu with no pae support.

[ozsouth]

@rvqx2 - you could try swapping in this non-pae kernel (at own risk): https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... AE.tar.bz2

Once downloaded, place in an empty folder, & in a terminal, cd into that folder & run: tar -jxvf huge-4.17.0-upupbb_noPAE.tar.bz2
Then rename vmlinuz-4.17.0... to vmlinuz ; rename kernel-modules.sfs-4.17.0... to zdrv (same as bionicpup name),
replace originals & reboot.

[rockedge]

@rvqx2 I also made a huge-4.17.0-upupbb_noPAE.tar.bz2 specifically to run Bionic32 on a strictly 32 bit, IBM T-42 laptop built equipped with 786 mb of RAM and a Pentium M processor, I think around 2002.

Bionic32 with this kernel runs well. Though the --forcepae parameter on the kernel command line works with many huge 32 bit Puppy Linux kernels on this Pentium M CPU. I was impressed with Tahr-6.0.5 and how many kernels I could get going with --forcepae