Not Booting KLA-OT2baseCE

[wiak]

Well, OT2baseCE is using Openbox/tint2 as a desktop manager, whereas most Pups just using JWM as desktop so that is an increased RAM - not terribly more but noticeable. Also the CE release has a lot of eye-candy, and that uses quite a bit more RAM. That's probably what nnriyer is referring to. At his work PC he should probably use JWM-variant of KL; that one certainly doesn't use more RAM than a PUP. There is nothing magical in RAM usage - simply depends what components you are running and what background processes; some of the eye-candy could be running daemons in background - I don't know. SImilarly XFCE uses significantly more RAM than JWM, but is a more complete desktop environment whilst not really too RAM heavy (like KDE plasma for example or GNOME would be).

KLA-OT2base (the simpler not very pretty original) uses less RAM by quite a bit than the CE variant, but still a little more than a simple JWM desktop would. Depends what you want in the end.

Having said all that KLA-OT2baseCE doesn't use high RAM at all. You should run a Pup (and state exactly which one) and try 'free' command, and do same with KLA-OT2baseCE and post the results rather than just claiming 'high' so that we can see if normal looking results. Otherwise your system may have an issue with KLA such that using more RAM than normal. Generally, like for like in terms of desktop, a KL distro tends to use a bit less RAM than a Puppy when I've tried, but only because we don't generally do copy2ram (though can); the difference is insignificant though, and even if using the bit-higher RAM desktop like XFCE the computer works fine (since nowadays has enough RAM) as long as not a CPU-challenged low-power machine. There are also some KL distros now using simple tiling managers that consume even less RAM sometimes than JWM.

[nnriyer]

My HP office Laptop having just 4GB RAM. When I trying to run Firefox browser with 2 more windows, the system hangs and required hard boot. .It shows full usage of memory. As per my assumption, Arch Linux wont use much memory. So Puppy structure with Arch, KLA Arch should work in blazing speed. Unfortunately it is damn slow for browsing etc. As pointed out by you all, It may be due to desktop manager. You may please note that EasyOs, Fossapup, and Antix Linux, etc working flawlessly and super fast. No such hanging at all. Please provide download link for KLA arch with less memory desktop environment so that I will test the same.

Chromium browser downloaded. Booting only with usage of --no-data- - in terminal commands.

[wiak]

My HP office Laptop having just 4GB RAM. When I trying to run Firefox browser with 2 more windows, the system hangs and required hard boot. .It shows full usage of memory. As per my assumption, Arch Linux wont use much memory. So Puppy structure with Arch, KLA Arch should work in blazing speed. Unfortunately it is damn slow for browsing etc. As pointed out by you all, It may be due to desktop manager. You may please note that EasyOs, Fossapup, and Antix Linux, etc working flawlessly and super fast. No such hanging at all. Please provide download link for KLA arch with less memory desktop environment so that I will test the same.

Chromium browser downloaded. Booting only with usage of --no-data- - in terminal commands.

I believe EasyOS and Fossapup do use JWM and thus less memory. KLA-OT2baseCE uses lots of eye-candy, and that needs RAM. Unfortunately I don't think any KLA has been released that uses a desktop like JWM. I actually prefer XFCE even on my 4GB HP laptop - yes, that is not so lightning fast as when I use JWM as an alternative, but the extra functionality is more important to me. I don't have time right now, but would be simple to take the KLA-OT2base (not the CE version) and take out openbox/tint2 and build instead with a default JWM desktop (would need a lot of polishing to bring it up to standard of the likes of long worked-on Fossapup or EasyOS though). In other words, no-one producing KLA distros (being just myself and Sofiya) has been interested to make slimmer JWM version - no one is trying to produce distros that satisfy all wishes, but this forum provides plenty alternatives as you know: EasyOS being a good modern alternative, and old Fossapup still useful for older machine such as you use. Future needs don't really encourage a lot of time building the likes of JWM KLA releases to be honest - more important to myself is development of Wayland/pipewire variants for computers less than ten years old (which is pretty old anyway). But, maybe someone has time, or you could try and learn how to build one yourself - it isn't difficult even just for someone with intermediate-level Linux commandline experience. To be frank, most people I see regularly making posts on this forum would be perfectly capable of building such a KLA JWM distro, despite them claiming not to know enough (they often create other simple packages that required just as much basic Linux commandline use as building a KL distro - it's pretty easy for those who spend a few days trying... or maybe some of those who do make builds could tell me I'm wrong about that opinion?). However, not everyone wants to spend time building distros, and I understand that feeling! Sometimes quicker to learn how to build your own distro than spend months of trying distros that don't work or are too slow though; waiting for someone else making required build might be a forever wait.

[geo_c]

My HP office Laptop having just 4GB RAM. When I trying to run Firefox browser with 2 more windows, the system hangs and required hard boot. .It shows full usage of memory. As per my assumption, Arch Linux wont use much memory. So Puppy structure with Arch, KLA Arch should work in blazing speed. Unfortunately it is damn slow for browsing etc. As pointed out by you all, It may be due to desktop manager. You may please note that EasyOs, Fossapup, and Antix Linux, etc working flawlessly and super fast. No such hanging at all. Please provide download link for KLA arch with less memory desktop environment so that I will test the same.

Chromium browser downloaded. Booting only with usage of --no-data- - in terminal commands.

Having used all the KL distros so far, I find it unlikely that the desktop hanging is simply a matter of normal OS RAM usage. KLA-OT2baseCE has eye candy, but it shouldn't be hogging up 4GB of ram. I haven't used KLA-OT2baseCE-2.9, last I used 2.1, but I don't remember it being slow at all. It seems likely there is some other issue going on there that may indeed involve some graphical element perhaps, or maybe it has to do with the kernel or firmware.

I've been using the KLV-Bspwm-CE these days, it's very fast and rarely runs more than 1.5GB of ram when opening multiple heavy websites in LibreWolf, which is really just firefox. Bspwm is a tiling window manager, and probably lower resosurce usage than JWM, or at worst equal to jwm. Bspwm looks a heck of a lot nicer also. This iso runs great! https://rockedge.org/kernels/data/ISO/K ... CE-1.2.iso

[wiak]

Whilst there is no KLA-jwm (and by the way Arch no longer provides jwm in its main repos though still available in AUR), KLA-OT2base should be lighter than KLA-OT2baseCE; still probably a bit more than a JWM desktop but not terribly so I'd think. I will compare Fossapup64 RAM usage with KLA-OT2base sometime is nnriyer doesn't provide results about that, but I'm too busy at the moment. Of course we are not interested in how much RAM is being used after browser is started up... that would be nothing to do with the distro itself but rather just the greed of the particular browser; chromium no doubt using more than say an older browser in Fossapup. So make sure any comments about RAM usage are immediately after boot - just open a terminal and enter: free

Similarly some browsers appear 'faster' or more responsive than others - that's nothing to do with the distro, but just a comment about browsers. Command 'top' should show how busy the CPU is; KL distros all pretty low CPU usage usually.

[wiak]

As per my assumption, Arch Linux wont use much memory. So Puppy structure with Arch, KLA Arch should work in blazing speed. Unfortunately it is damn slow for browsing etc.

I'm curious if you have ever tried normal Arch Linux. I'm not so sure it won't use much memory since newer libs tend to make RAM usage higher and Arch is very much rolling-release distro (though yes, depends on desktop and so on). Certainly FossaPup64 (old one anyway) uses very little initial RAM - but its libs are pretty old. I don't know a good answer to this. Vanilla Dpup uses quite a lot more RAM than Fossapup, but not bad... DebianDog Boxer uses something inbetween FossaPup and Vanilla Dpup, but if you want Arch then you don't have many choices here sorry.

[wiak]

Can someone remind me please of the correct grub2 boot stanza for booting FossaPup64 from hard drive (old fossapup64). For some reason the adrv is not being detected though the distro is booting on my machine. I was trying with pfix=nocopy, but truth is I forget the stanza for booting a Pup. Currently trying:

Code: Select all

menuentry "FossaP" {
  insmod ext2
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 7d34b88e-bc8e-4bb6-86cf-d619c3b545a9
    linux /FossaP/vmlinuz pmedia=ata pfix=nocopy
    initrd /FossaP/initrd.gz
}

I have a suspicion old fossapup64 doesn't boot properly on my newer HP laptop with nvme SSD, but it would be odd to me that main OS is booting, but blurred low-pixel desktop background which seems to be adrv missing (but the adrv sfs is in my frugal install folder). I was trying to see what initial RAM (very low) it uses in relation to nnriyer post.

EDIT: No wonder the free result for RAM used was so low... Only the main pup sfs was loaded (to RAM) but thereafter it can't find my nvme drive so no fdrv, zdrv, or adrv being loaded (lsmod showing no modules loaded into RAM - well that's a great way to get low initial RAM! ). I'll have to try it on my older laptop since no good on this one...

[fredx181]

@wiak I have this in grub.cfg and works well from nvme drive:

Code: Select all

menuentry "fossapup64 9.5 - Don't copy SFS files to RAM" {
insmod part_msdos 
insmod ext2
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root  ff46c108-01c3-4dfe-bfea-00395fdf3fd0
    linux /fossap/vmlinuz pfix=nocopy,fsck pmedia=atahd psubdir=fossap
    initrd /fossap/initrd.gz
}

EDIT: About RAM usage display; the newer systems e.g. Arch, Debian-Bookworm etc... have a higher version of procps (including free and top) that display much higher RAM usage than the older FossaPup.
(calculated memory used is different)

[wiak]

@wiak I have this in grub.cfg and works well from nvme drive:

Code: Select all

menuentry "fossapup64 9.5 - Don't copy SFS files to RAM" {
insmod part_msdos 
insmod ext2
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root  ff46c108-01c3-4dfe-bfea-00395fdf3fd0
    linux /fossap/vmlinuz pfix=nocopy,fsck pmedia=atahd psubdir=fossap
    initrd /fossap/initrd.gz
}

EDIT: About RAM usage display; the newer systems e.g. Arch, Debian-Bookworm etc... have a higher version of procps (including free and top) that display much higher RAM usage than the older FossaPup.
(calculated memory used is different)

Thanks Fred. I had forgotten about the psubdir... how on earth did I forget that! (bit of a worry...). Also, hadn't heard about the procps situation - wonder why that was changed in terms of its calculations?

[nnriyer]

Chromium browser downloaded. Booting only with usage of --no-data- - in terminal commands.

I've been using the KLV-Bspwm-CE these days, it's very fast and rarely runs more than 1.5GB of ram when opening multiple heavy websites in LibreWolf, which is really just firefox. Bspwm is a tiling window manager, and probably lower resosurce usage than JWM, or at worst equal to jwm. Bspwm looks a heck of a lot nicer also. This iso runs great! https://rockedge.org/kernels/data/ISO/K ... CE-1.2.iso
[/quote]

I have tested above ISO and booted from my Home HP Laptop having NVME SSD. Booting is super fast. However, not showing any wifi etc. May driver required. Other than less memory (424mb) usage, It is bare minimum distro. This is just for information. Thank you.

[nnriyer]

Dear Guru's

The above ISO booted from my HP Laptop NVME SSD, If so why KLA Arch is not booting ?. What went wrong in the arch construction ?. Pardon me if I am troubling you, Just for information asking ?

[geo_c]

I have tested above isdo and booted from my Home HP Laptop having NVME SSD. Booting is super fast. However, not showing any wifi etc. May driver required. Other than less memory (424mb) usage, It is bare minimum distro. This is just for information. Thank you.

Well, true about it being more minimal than most distros, but @Sofiya and @rockedge have it loaded with more than the bare necessities, it can mount drives from gtk and PCmanFM, it has the advanced network tool that is configured manually, but you can also run ntmui from the terminal to scan wifi networks and connect. It can handle gtk2-4, and is easy to configure program launching simply by adding desktop files which then appear in the dmenus.

If you're looking for Arch in particular, Void is certainly leaner on the quantity/variety of packages offered, however, Xbps is a fanastic rolling release package manager IMHO, as it keeps software current but not "cutting edge" and is stable and dependable.

I have loaded it with about 25 applications using Xbps, and then I use a good handful of portable browsers and thunderbird email, and of course those applications can be installed from OctoXbps, the gui package manager for Xbps which is also included in the iso.

I'm not sure whether you're saying you've run one of the network manager tools and your wifi card is simply not present, which might be solved by a firmware/modules/kernel swap.

[fredx181]

Also, hadn't heard about the procps situation - wonder why that was changed in terms of its calculations?

Discussed here: viewtopic.php?t=9027 about conky display in Bookworm, but in fact it's the change for free and top, AFAIK lxtask does show the "old' memory usage.
Don't know either why the change.
@radky explains more: viewtopic.php?p=92916#p92916

[fredx181]

If you're looking for Arch in particular, Void is certainly leaner on the quantity/variety of packages offered, however, Xbps is a fanastic rolling release package manager IMHO, as it keeps software current but not "cutting edge" and is stable and dependable.

To add, Void runs without systemd (using runit).

[wiak]

I've nothing against systemd, but nevertheless I do like Void Linux.

I wanted to check RAM usage of KL distro to make sure no issues I wasn't aware of. Unfortunately my attempt at Firstribit of old fossapup64 didn't quite work (frozen mouse) though I may know why now since I since made the Firstribit of F96-CE. Anyway, for now just used FR_F96-CE versus straight Puppy F96-CE pristine boot and free command in terminal (with same Puppy vmlinuz/modules/firmware). Well, there was a boot difference - as things stand zram load failed in FR_F96-CE... probably gets something set up in Pups own initrd but booted fine anyway. With that difference in mind, the FR_F96-CE actually used less initial RAM on my machine being around 400MB compared to 600MB for the actual Pup according to free command (with pfix=nocopy). I can only imagine the zram is the reason for the Puppy itself using that extra RAM on initial boot. I'll look into it tomorrow if I have time. Anyway, I'm satisfied that at least FR variant is not using more RAM than the straight Puppy boot of F96-CE...

[rockedge]

@wiak The experimenting I've been doing with Kennel Linux Puppy (KLP) has shown also about the same RAM usage as F96-CE_4 running but can be slightly less RAM used in KLP because the ZRAM is not used. I also had at first a frozen mouse with KLP but some adjustments with the modules and firmware solved it I think.

Overall I can say I have not seen any excessive RAM usage by any KL variant. I have had very few problems with FirstRib type test platforms as far as RAM usage goes.

Going to take the KLV-Spectr concept a step further by swapping in a more polished, complete tiling window manager desktop by going with @geo_c 's suggestion of using the Awesome tiling manager instead of Spectrwm and see how such a configuration perfoms compared to KLV-Spectr and KLV-Bspwm

[Clarity]

... Overall I can say I have not seen any excessive RAM usage by any KL variant. ...

Agree! ... and verified both in a KVM as well on bare-metal.