Specific older browser onto Bionic/Tahr? (Solved)

[stevie pup]

Stevie Pup: Thought you might be interested -

After coming across this: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Light-weigh ... stribution

and https://techlog360.com/best-lightweight ... ributions/

and https://www.makeuseof.com/linux-distros ... t-support/

Thank you for that Venn, although I must admit I take a lot of such reviews with a pinch of salt. Over the last couple of years I've tried quite a lot of the distros listed, and in quite a few cases have been less than impressed. Some of them I would certainly not class as lightweight, and when you start looking into details you'll find some are no longer developed/supported. And some are most definitely not suitable for beginners.

Having said that I'm surprised you didn't have any luck with Antix. I do use that occasionally and I've found it very good, although it does have it's quirks. There was a piece on the Antix forum couple years back about someone who managed to get it up and running on a PC with a Pentium 2. Admittedly they had to fiddle around a bit and make some changes, but they did it in the end.

[mikeslr]

"Mikeslr: I tried Corepup 8 – it wouldn’t boot to a desktop. Might you recall which version you were able to get running?"

Sorry, venn. I don't recall which version. I've never really worked with Corepup beyond the limited exploration I mentioned in my post. Just thought it might be an OS worth trying for your situation.

I don't think the version matters. It's likely that they were all packaged and would operated (or fail) the same way.

[venn]

Williams2: "pfix=nocopy should allow you to run Puppy with about the same free ram as a full install".

This is what I was afraid of, but since I have the 2gb to spare that greengeek spoke of - I'll give the swap parton thing a try.

Steviepup: Yeah I hear ya! I tried over a dozen distros, from modern to digging into archived versions, and puppy has blown them all outta the water. Tahr was the 1st distro I tried + it has ended up being the best choice - ugh I burnt thru so many DVDs! I definitely quickly eliminated a bunch of the distros on these lists based on the details. I still get the feeling Slax has good potential to work, but given it's not for beginners I think the only way I could get it to be useful for me would be to track some1 down that could install it for me.

Thanks for mentioning some1 got AntiX to work on a PII - I'll keep it in mind for mine + try to look that up to see if I can follow along, when the time comes.

Greengeek:. Step 1 (defrag) of the 3 you've given is complete. Step 2 + 3 now show you how new I am to messing with computers - I'm not really sure how to do these. Is step 2 something I do in Windows or Puppy? See, I wouldn't have thought there was a step 2 at all - I would have gone straight from defraging to Puppy Gparted to create the partition.

I'll probably end up asking a follow up question on step 3, but I'll take this 1 step at a time.

[rockedge]

@venn I think you can skip the shrink the NTFS (Windows) partition and create a swap partition steps altogether and use a swap file, which acts like a swap partition but is easy to start and does not need any physically unallocated disk space to create one.

There is an option in the Puppy Setup controls to add the swap file. It acts just like a swap partition but is a file that can live on the Windows partition as is. This is the simplest way and very easy to setup but still provides the same function.

Menu->Setup->Puppy Setup->Startup->Swapfile

Screenshot(16).jpg (35.32 KiB) Viewed 2172 times

[venn]

While rockedge's suggestion seems like it would be the easier thing to do, I have hit a snag in attempting it.

1. If Tahrpup has this function of creating a swapfile, it's hidden + not nearly as accessible as shown in the posted pic. If some1 knows where to do this in Tahr - PLEASE reply.

2. So I booted Xenial to see if it has this screen - it does. So I went thru the whole set up sequence to prepare a savefile b/c Pup advises not making a swapfile on an initial boot. Due to my having the ext3 formatted usb drive, holding the Newmoon files, plugged in - the initial shutdown guide pages recommended I create a savefolder on the ext3 formatted partition over a savefile on the ntsf partition Windows XP is sitting on. I agreed + sat thru the computer copying whatever files it thought it needed from the DVD to the USB. So upon reboot I thought I set it up so the USB would be holding Newmoon, my Xenial savefolder, and the copied DVD files it needed to boot with all the settings I had just fiddled with.

The problem is upon reboot, the desktop pulled up the Setup window + all my settings were gone! The Xenial savefolder IS sitting in the USB, along with only the 3 .sfs files from the DVD - nothing else from the DVD. Is this correct or should it have copied other files from the DVD (e.g. vmlinuz, .cfg + .c32 + .gz + .sh files, isolinux.bin)? The only reason I can imagine as why it doesn't recognize the 2nd boot as not an initial boot is that it failed to copy some file from the DVD, but of course I don't really know.

I was trying to keep the XP partition as clean as possible, in case it turns out I need to go ahead with a full install. So, do I dare go ahead with creating a swapfile, despite being warned not to on an "initial" run OR should I create the save-file on the XP partition 1st, then the swapfile on the 2nd boot?

[mikewalsh]

@venn :-

Tahrpup didn't come with the 'pupswap' file. However, since like so many other Puppy utilities it's a 'standalone' script, just copy the 'pupswap' file from Xenialpup across to Tahrpup.

You'll find Xenial's 'pupswap' in /usr/sbin. Copy it across, and put it in /usr/sbin in Tahrpup. There is absolutely NO reason why it wouldn't work, since it IS just a script.

Once it's in /usr/sbin, drag it onto the desktop to use it while you're setting it up. Simply clicking on it will then launch the 'pupswap' utility...OK?

Let us know how you get on, please. I'll keep an eye to this thread, and will advise further if necessary. If, as you say, Tahrpup works best on your old hardware, then we'll do what we can to make it as usable as possible for you.

If you want, it's easy enough to put together a MenuEntry for it, so it's permanently accessible in an easier fashion. Let me know if you want to do this; I'm going to be in & out all day, since Monday is when I run most of my errands, but I'll keep an eye on what's happening here.

Mike.

[venn]

The swapfile hasn't made a difference for Newmoon. Creating it in Bionic brought up a couple of odd things tho:

(1) It says Total RAM: 365mb (when XP was telling me it's 348) w/ Total swap: 63mb, which I set the swap size to 2048mb b/c I have 2.45gb free space on the hard drive.

(2) it said the swapfile already existed; asking did I want to replace it (I guess as indicated by the 63mb note above), which I did.

I tested Newmoon, with the available 2GB swapfile in place, under both Bionic + Tahr. So is this enough of a test to say I'm not going to get Newmoon to work on this computer (w/o buying more RAM) OR should I go ahead + see what a full install would do OR did I do something wrong in creating the swapfile?

[greengeek]

It would be really handy to have a swap partition on your hdd - even if it is only 2GB. If you dont have a Windows utility to shrink the Windows partition then Gparted can certainly do it. You can use gparted to resize the windows partition (if freshly defragged) and then to make the swap partition in the remaining space.

Yes there is a risk to the xp install - but i have done this without problems and it sounds as if you are prepared to take the risk.

Just one thing to note: Puppy makes good use of a swap partition even when it has no save file or save folder. So i would recommend setting up the swap partition, then booting the puppy without savefile and then hover your mouse over the partition icon in the system tray. You should see a significant portion of the extra (swap partition) space now added on top of the previous RAM figure.

Then try various browsers and see if you have any better performance.

The new pseudo RAM is obviously not as fast as true RAM but will allow most browsers plenty of room to properly stretch their legs. A swap partition (which is available PRIOR TO AND DURING BOOT) is a totally different thing to "swap space" which merely allows the system to juggle small pages of memory.

Older machines derive huge benefit from as large a swap partition as possible on the fastest device possible (ie hdd or ssd if you can fit one).

Some machines even allow a pcmcia or cardbus slot to contain storage (i have successfully used cf cards and microdrives) or even a usb3 stick in a pcmcia or expresscard adapter as swap partitions. Even though such devices are not valid boot sources Puppy will find and use any swap partition that is there as long as it is available during boot.

[rockedge]

Yes best to do what greengeek recommends and create the swap partition. It is rather easy to do with GParted running from the Bionic.

Shrink the NTFS partition first then assign the newly unallocated space as a Linux-swap partition and apply.

Reboot would probably be in order afterwards.

[venn]

Well I've gone + broke Tahrpup somehow. My mouse no longer works, even after doing the same things I did to get it to work in the 1st place. I did attempt to find the solution in other threads, to no avail.

In preparation for creating the partition, I thought I should delete the files I had created on the hard drive up 'til now w/ the various Puppies, which included save-files for Bionic + Tahr (so deleted anything that said "tahr" in it), the newly created swapfolder, and Newmoon (b/c I have a 2nd copy of it on the USB). Thinking this was all fine b/c it would just get me back down to the same situation as me putting the Tahr DVD in the 1st time, which for the most part it did, along w/ getting me to 2.98gb free space over the 2.45gb.

My settings were gone + the regular initial desktop screen w/ the 2 black+white puppies looking at each other was back, along with the mouse not moving. All expected, as that's the same as when I 1st used the Tahr DVD. I then proceed to activated the mouse via tabbing down to the "Dead mouse?" Fix on the initial setup screen (setting it to a Serial mouse), X restarts, then I tab into the main puppy setup screen to set the type of mouse to ps/2 + uncheck the "mouse has a scroll wheel" box. I'm pretty sure this is all I did to get the mouse working my initial run of Tahr, the real 1st time. Now the mouse just sits the middle of the screen. I tried all ports in the 1st setup screen.

The only thing I can think of is that I deleted something I shouldn't have. On the other hand, it sort of makes no sense b/c I thought the DVD comes with everything you need to make it work. So maybe I've forgotten some step I did the last initial run to get the mouse to work?

I saw on another thread greengeek mention something about a #dmesg command, but I can't reach the terminal. I can really only tab/ enter my way thru the setup screens, which I've done everything I can see to activate the mouse. So I'm a little dead in the water right now w/ XP as the only fully working OS right now. Unless some1 has any ideas.

[mikeslr]

Please open a new thread. The problem you now have is far beyond that suggested by the title of this thread. Give the new thread a title consistent with what you now need to do. Perhaps copy and past your last post into the OP of the new thread, with a link to the beginning of this thread if you think it appropriate.

That said, if I understand you correctly, your only operating system is Windows XP. And your objective is to locate some Puppy (tahr32 or bionic 32) on your hard-drive and install into it/them the palemoon web-browser created to work on computers which only have the SSE instructions.

[greengeek]

Does your PC boot ok from a Tahr32 CD/DVD?

Your first post suggests that it does but let's confirm that...

[venn]

Greengeek :.it sorta sounds like you're asking me a follow-up question to my last post RE: my frozen mouse. That issue was solved over on this thread:. https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 134#p61134

Sorry, I tried to delete my last post on this thread, but it looks like if some1 replies to a post, then only they have the control of deleting their last post. So since mikeslr responded to my last post, it doesn't look like I can erase that speed bump in my main journey here to getting Newmoon to work on Tahrpup.

But to answer your question: Yes Tahrpup runs as it is suppose to OOTB. The only issue I have w/ it is that the default Opera browser is v.12.15, which gets to the internet, but only to a few select sites. Theoretically, Newmoon should open the entirety of the internet, if only I can get it enough resources to open on my Thinkpad T20. At this point I'm ready to attempt making the partition, then install.

After looking at Gparted, I now see what you were talking about - why making a suitably formatted partition is a 2 step process in Puppy. I've only once before installed a Linux distro onto an originally Windows computer + that was Zorin Lite 16. In Zorin's installation process it does the job of creating+sizing the partition + formatting the new partition all in 1 gui screen. That's why in my mind creating the partition was just 1 step before reading your reply on pg. 3 of this thread.

[venn]

Ah I learned something new in visiting this thread after so long - after some amt of time the editing ability goes away. So to continue along the lines of where I left off above - on the 3rd pg of this thread it was recommended that I create a Swap partition. Since I think I have found a software that will create the partition (I.e. MiniTool Partition Wizard b/c the couple of EaseUS versions I tried aren't working on XP) I am about to need to format that partition + want to make sure I set it up correctly to do a Full Puppy installation.

In reading the "Format partition" section on https://www.minitool.com/partition-mana ... -home.html

I see I will have the choices of Ext2/3/4 and Linux Swap. So I am wondering why would I make it a Swap partition + not Ext3 like I did for the flash drive per Mikewalsh's instructions on pg. 1 of this thread. I was thinking Ext2/3/4 was to Linux as NTSF was to Windows to run an OS on.

[mikewalsh]

@venn :-

<snip>....I see I will have the choices of Ext2/3/4 and Linux Swap. So I am wondering why would I make it a Swap partition + not Ext3 like I did for the flash drive per Mikewalsh's instructions on pg. 1 of this thread. I was thinking Ext2/3/4 was to Linux as NTSF was to Windows to run an OS on.

That's right. And in its turn, "swap" is to Linux as the "page file" is to Windows.......and performs exactly the same function; somewhere for the OS to temporarily switch RAM operations to when it senses it's getting low on the latter.

Windows will complain like a bitch if it doesn't find a 'page file', and will bug the hell out of you until you create one. Linux is not quite so 'in-yer-face' about it; it won't complain about it, but it really does make sense to create one when partitioning any disk for the first time with Linux in mind. Most mainstream distros will automatically create a swap partition by default when you run the installer, just as the Windows installer automatically creates a page-file for you. Puppy, by contrast, is very much more 'hands-on', leaving ultimate control in the hands of the user. Which creates a few problems for noobs, although once you've done all this a few times, it kinda becomes second nature...

It does get easier, trust me!

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

Unless you're like me, and have so much RAM you don't know what to do with the stuff (32 GB of it). Even so, I have a total of 64 GB of swap, spread across three main drives.....including one single 48 GB swap partition. Seems like overkill, I know, but there IS "method in my madness"; it's entirely down to my preference for regularly suspending the OS.....and the BIOS on this HP rig insists on mirroring the entire contents of RAM to a single location when doing so, regardless of how little may be in actual use.

(*shrug*)

(If I try and do this across several smaller swap partitions, it all goes totally & catastrophically wrong when I wake everything up again.....necessitating a 'power-cycle', followed by a re-boot again. Which kinda defeats the purpose of the exercise!)

Mike.

[gychang]

@venn :-

Let us know how you get on, please. I'll keep an eye to this thread, and will advise further if necessary. If, as you say, Tahrpup works best on your old hardware, then we'll do what we can to make it as usable as possible for you.

Mike.

@mikewalsh: always very helpful. I following this thread since I am looking for a working vivaldi browser (tried vivaldi-portable) on my dell 32bit Tahrpup...

[mikewalsh]

@gychang :-

Greg, did you actually try the options I suggested over in the Vivaldi thread? You DO have to do some of the work yourself, mate! Can't always wait for someone else to drop a ready-made solution into your lap. I got the impression you gave up rather quickly because it wasn't going to be that easy. Learning by making mistakes is usually the best kind of learning, because the mistakes tend to stick with you; you very quickly learn not to repeat those mistakes. And the knowledge gained so often comes in useful further down the line....

Sometimes, there's nothing for it but a bit of old-fashioned detective work.....using the terminal, seeing what's missing, tracking it down & installing it.....that kind of thing. Let me ask you this; if Puppy existed, but there was NO Puppy Forum.....what would you do, hmm? You'd have no choice but to fix things yourself, yes?

I've been doing just this for years, but then I happen to enjoy the challenge of getting stuff working; I like the "leg-work". I also keep every single Puppy ISO I've ever downloaded; those ISOs have proved to be an absolute gold-mine when it comes to missing dependencies, and have often saved me the bother of having to look further afield.

Besides.....it's all good fun!

Mike.

[gychang]

@gychang :-

Greg, did you actually try the options I suggested over in the Vivaldi thread? You DO have to do some of the work yourself, mate! Can't always wait for someone else to drop a ready-made solution into your lap. I got the impression you gave up rather quickly because it wasn't going to be that easy. Learning by making mistakes is usually the best kind of learning, because the mistakes tend to stick with you; you very quickly learn not to repeat those mistakes. And the knowledge gained so often comes in useful further down the line....

Sometimes, there's nothing for it but a bit of old-fashioned detective work.....using the terminal, seeing what's missing, tracking it down & installing it.....that kind of thing. Let me ask you this; if Puppy existed, but there was NO Puppy Forum.....what would you do, hmm? You'd have no choice but to fix things yourself, yes?

Mike.

Mike: I thought I put up the error messages from your suggesion but I had not. Here is the link: viewtopic.php?t=624&start=100

[mikewalsh]

@gychang :-

Mm. Uh-huh. Yeah.....I'd forgotten 6.0.5 needed this stuff adding in. By the time Phil released 6.0.6 some months later, all this came OOTB, along with the uefi boot 'fix' and a few other necessities.

I'm running 6.0.6, so this is all there for me.....and is why Vivaldi fires up here with no problems, while you're getting error messages.

The first section is more or less saying it wants components of the Network Security Service libraries that are missing. Libsoftokn3 isn't in the OS tree as it comes, OOTB; in all honesty, what usually happens is that if any 'zilla browser is installed in a recognised location, other browsers will make use of its included libs.....since they always come with a full suite of the necessary libraries built-in. Tahr 6.0.5 comes with some nss stuff included, but not all of them. It's never an issue if you run any 'zilla-based browser, for the reason given above. Chromium-based 'clones', however, expect to find them in the standard locations.

The second bit is telling us the browser can't find the necessary cryptographic libraries; libcrypto & libssl. In Tahr 6.0.5, these are in fact present & correct, BUT.....the necessary .so symlinks are missing.

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

I've put together a .pet that will restore the missing sym-links in /lib, and install a slightly newer set of the required nss libs in /usr/lib. Some of the existing items in /usr/lib will be overwritten, but that won't hurt; these libs are always best installed as a "matching" set, and since they're statically-compiled they don't look around the system to find other dependencies. They do, however, look for each other since they're compiled to work together.....and they're still approximately the same vintage as everything else in Tahrpup.

You can find the .pet (and MD5sum) here:-

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ofdcak ... +Tahrpup32

There may be one or two others I've forgotten, but these should get you most of the way there. I haven't had to do this for years; my old rig simply wouldn't run 6.0.6 for some reason, but since running it on this new HP rig I'd completely forgotten that 6.0.5 needed this stuff doing.

And DON'T FORGET the GTK3 .pet for Tahr!!

https://www.mediafire.com/file/oglt88cv ... y.pet/file

Mike.

[gychang]

There may be one or two others I've forgotten, but these should get you most of the way there. I haven't had to do this for years; my old rig simply wouldn't run 6.0.6 for some reason, but since running it on this new HP rig I'd completely forgotten that 6.0.5 needed this stuff doing.

And DON'T FORGET the GTK3 .pet for Tahr!!

https://www.mediafire.com/file/oglt88cv ... y.pet/file

Mike.

Mike, I installed your package and put the files in the directories. Also installed the GTK3.pet and rebooted. When I launched from the terminal, half of screen went dark and kept getting continuous multiple lines of error codes (couldn't save). At this point I will stick with Vivaldi-portable working in XenialPup32.

thanks for all your help.

[venn]

I'm going to be super duper cautious at this step b/c I don't want mess something up so things don't work, even though I suspect I could just reformat the partition if necessary. In reading:. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/swap-partition/

And a search of "OS on primary or logical partition" returned an answer of "Primary partition is a bootable partition and it contains the operating system/s of the computer, while logical partition is a partition that is not bootable."

Then I did a search of "OS on primary or swap partition" where I found this result under the People Also Ask section:. "Should swap partition be primary or logical?
Default install usually puts swap in a logical partition. It really does not matter whether logical or primary other than future partition planning, so usually logical works better."

All this together says to me a swap partition is not the format to run an OS from, it's supposed to be storage only. I'm starting to get the impression it was suggested to me to make a swap partition to have an overflow place for my little RAM computer while still booting Tahrpup off the CD drive. But I was thinking I would do a Full Tahrpup installation, which I'm thinking needs a primary partition to boot from.

Am I thinking of this correctly? If so, then which direction should I go in becomes the question. Again, I suppose if I just choose one option + it doesn't get Newmoon to work, I could always reformat the partition to try the remaining option...correct?

My basic question is:. If I tell MiniTool the 2.1gb partition it creates is to be a Swap partition, can I do a Full Tahrpup installation on it?

[gychang]

My basic question is:. If I tell MiniTool the 2.1gb partition it creates is to be a Swap partition, can I do a Full Tahrpup installation on it?

I don't think you can install TP on a swap partition.

[williams2]

If you are asking if you format a partition as a swap partition,
and then later format the swap partition as an ext2/3/4 partition,
can you install a Linux operating system to the ext formatted partition,
yes you can.

If you are asking if you can install an OS to a partition formatted as a swap partition with out reformatting it as a ext file system first,
then no, you can't.

If you run an operating system installer,
and tell it to install to a partition that is formatted as a swap partition,
and the installer automatically formats the partition with a Linux file system first,
then yes, that should work.

If the OS you are using at that moment is using the swap partition,
the swap partition should be turned off first (swapoff)

On my machine, I have no swap partitions.
If I need swap space, I can create a swap file.

[venn]

After creating a 2.5gb Primary NTFS Partition in XP with #8 (IM-magic resizer) on the following list, b/c programs that said they support XP actually don't (I tried #1 minitool, #3 easeus, and #6 macrorit):. https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/win ... n-manager/

Small side note:. For some unknown reason Gparted started working without me doing anything to get it to work after it giving me a message before that it needed something downloaded. So I could have used Gparted to create the partition, but due to Mikeslr's recommendation not to (on another thread) I used IM-magic Resizer.

I then moved on to install Tahr. Used Gparted to reformat the designated partition to ext2, because IM-magic only has the options of NTFS, FAT16, or FAT32. The only other thing I had a choice about (where I could've picked the wrong thing) was where I wanted to install it, which I told the installer my computer had a IDE/SATA hard drive rather than SCSI.

After the install, Tahrpup has 1.43gb free space to work with in its partition. It seems to look the same as when Tahr runs off the DVD, including Newmoon's behavior (adds to the menu, but won't display). The only major difference I can see in the Full installation vs. booting via DVD is that Opera (along with several other browsers readily available in quickpet) would download+install when running off the DVD, where it (they) won't even download in the full install. This makes me wonder if this glitch in Opera is also affecting Newmoon (tho I doubt it since Newmoon should just be running off the USB, but I also moved it onto the partition's mnt/home), but with me not knowing how to fix it, it probably doesn't matter...the fact is the full install doesn't work as I had hoped - actually worse than the original set up I tried.

So with my little IBM thinkpad T20 appearing to hit the RAM wall limit, looks like I'm down to needing to make a decision:
A) use the computer offline only
Or
B) If I want to access limited Internet via Opera 12.15 on Tahr - run it from the DVD w/ a savefile in place (which I'd probably hand back XP the 2.5gb I took from it)...unless some1 has a way to fix it on the full install??
Or
C) buy more RAM to max it out at the 512mb level to attempt to get Newmoon working on the full install

If any1 has any ideas where to buy cheap RAM, I'll take it b/c I'm not seeing any anywhere ( I'm seeing ~$50). If I could get RAM as cheap as Mikewalsh did at 6gbp, I'd be willing to invest that much into this idk-how-much used machine that is estimated to have a max. Life span of 5-7 yrs, despite being warned not to invest any $ into a computer that's 10+ yrs old.

Otherwise, it appears I've tried everything I can. Unless any1 has any last Hail Mary ideas, I guess I'll consider this matter closed + no longer ask any questions about it, resigning myself to the fact that I have 3 primarily, if not fully, offline-use-only computers.

Thank you all for all the feedback. It's been an interesting journey.

[stevie pup]

Otherwise, it appears I've tried everything I can. Unless any1 has any last Hail Mary ideas, I guess I'll consider this matter closed + no longer ask any questions about it, resigning myself to the fact that I have 3 primarily, if not fully, offline-use-only computers.

I realise this may be pointing you in a different direction, but did you ever get round to trying antiX Linux? I've just done a quick test, and antiX 21 (32 bit) with Sea Monkey browser was using 190Mb RAM to view this forum. I then went on to a News website (that has a fair few ads) and the RAM usage briefly went up to 240Mb, then settled down at around 210-220Mb.

Just a thought before you completely abandon it.

[venn]

I did try AntiX 19.b3, which I coulda swore I downloaded b/c 21 was for 64bit only or there was some specific reason I didn't think it was going to work on the Thinkpad - I wouldn't have dug into older versions for no reason. However, upon reading you ran 21 in 32bit made me look at it again. In reading 21's sys. Req's, I now for the life of me don't know why I didn't try it. I actually now don't even know how I got ahold of 19.b3 b/c I now can't find a link anywhere to download it (thought I got it from Sourceforge, but now I only see 19.5).

I was going to give my last post a couple of wks to see if any answer would come in RE: full installation Quickpet not being able to download any of the browsers when it could running off a DVD issue + have debated with myself if it actually warrants creating a new post, but figured it would just be the same moderator people who read this thread that would answer - so then it seems creating a new post would just be duplication. But if no more suggestions come in, I will remerge the 2 partitions back together and definitely give AntiX 21 a look. Thank you for bringing it up!

What"s interesting about AntiX is if you look at Distrowatch's listing:. 21 has FF 78.15 vs. 19.5 has FF 91.5. So while my notes about AntiX 19.b3 were "Internet (tho outdated browser), no word processor/Spreadsheet + its boot/shutdown process are so slow it makes you think it’ll never work" I wonder if they fine tuned it later + it somehow got a little sleeker. And rereading Distrowatch's listing, I see it's supposedly has LibreOffice, so Idk why I didn't see any word processing/SS on it - must've not looked very hard I guess. I'll have my fingers crossed for the retry.

But I'll try redoing the install 1st w/ the partition formatted as ext3, after reading https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... all#p64465

I see that might be causing the browsers' problems.

[stevie pup]

And rereading Distrowatch's listing, I see it's supposedly has LibreOffice, so Idk why I didn't see any word processing/SS on it - musta not looked very hard I guess.

Depends whether you used the Full version or the Base version. Full comes with LibreOffice, Base doesn't. The Base version also has less multimedia apps, and a few other things missing that are in the Full version. As far as I remember I think each version comes with different browsers as well. I believe the reasoning behind this is that by dropping a few items it means the Base version will fit on a CD, whereas Full most certainly won't.

Probably easier to use Full to start with but if you're forced to use Base you can always add additional software later. As for boot up times I can honestly say that of all the Linux Distros I've tried over the last 2 or 3 years I found antiX to be the fastest to boot (and that includes Puppies). That's not a criticism by the way, simply my personal experience.

[venn]

Ok I can definitely say: my originally choosing ext2 in formatting the partition was the problem for Opera 12.15.  Once I reformatted to ext3, Tahr works exactly the same as it does off a DVD. So Bigpup’s assertion (pg. 2 of this thread) + Williams2’s (pg. 3 of this thread) was correct regarding the boot option pfix=nocopy operates the same as a full install.

But I became curious if formatting the partition as linux-swap would get Newmoon to work when booting off the DVD - so I reformatted again.  My main concern is that I couldn't remove the "boot" flag during reformatting.  It looked like to remove it I would need to make the partition from scratch again - deleting it to make the space unallocated again, which I didn't have the guts to do without asking if that's correct, for fear I would somehow make that 2.5GB completely unusable.  So to summarize:. A 2.5gb linux-swap formatted partition with a boot flag does not get Newmoon to work on a DVD booted Tahrpup.

If any1 knows whether or not it’s worth going back in to remove the "boot" flag to test if Newmoon will work with a linux-swap partition - please advise.  Otherwise, I will assume I’ve tried everything I can to get Newmoon to work on this machine. Eventually I will reformat the partition back to ext3 + settle into the idea that I have a Thinkpad T20 that has XP w/ Office 2007 on 1 partition and Tahrpup on the 2nd partition where I can get limited Internet access via Opera 12.15 + pdf reader.

Steviepup:

Now that I look at AntiX’s website again I realize I must’ve stumbled upon 19.b3 by searching something else on the net b/c it certainly isn’t easy to get to by poking around on their official site. You can’t even find the main 19 version easily, much less the beta version. So now I’m thinking I had no real reason I didn’t download 21 other than it was an early venture into Linux for me + was confused by their site. I don’t think I even realized that I downloaded a beta version, even tho I did think the “b” in the name was odd, as versions of software normally only have #’s in them.

And looking at the file that I got I see where I went wrong – I did get the Base version. So thanks for making me revisit AnttiX – it’s good to know I’m not blind yet. I downloaded AntiX 21 + will go ahead to try it, but I suspect I will have the same SSE browser track down issue I have w/ Puppy.  I think it's worth investigating, as I might be able to get an ever so slightly newer browser than Opera 12.15, which might open up a few more websites.

[stevie pup]

but I suspect I will have the same SSE browser track down issue I have w/ Puppy. I think it's worth investigating, as I might be able to get an ever so slightly newer browser than Opera 12.15, which might open up a few more websites.

If you look at the alternative browsers available for download in 32 bit antiX 21 you'll see there is a non SSE2 version of Palemoon, which is specifically intended for use with PII, PIII and PIV processors. I've never needed to use it myself so I don't know how good it is or anything else about it, but it may well be worth you giving it a go.

[venn]

I’m so sad to say AntiX 21 simply is not a serious contender, Puppy is lightning fast comparatively. It sounded so promising I had such high hopes a final release would be the answer I was looking for. I’d go as far as to say 21 is worse than 19.b3 in terms of speed, which I never would’ve predicted a beta would work faster than a final release. By all written accounts of AntiX goals + system requirements and your testimonial, it should be as easy as popping in the disc – admittedly getting to the internet IS that easy (which is easier than Puppy the 1st time around, not that I think Puppy is all that difficult). But I only see Dillo in there, FF-esr won’t work (I didn’t look for alt. Browsers b/c everything moved so slowly). There is LibreOffice + a pdf reader, but they’re so slow, there’s no point in even bothering with it. For some odd reason the overwhelming majority of apps have 2 listings in the menu, which might be why it’s so slow – it’s confusing itself maybe? Logout is so slow, I just press the on/off button to shut it off. At least you are having a good experience with it Steviepup.

I’m OK with a very truncated internet with Tahr OOTB. I didn’t really expect full access to it in the 1st place on a 20+ year old machine. I can get enough to get some things done on it. If I stumble across cheap enough RAM for it, I may go ahead + try to get NewMoon running at that point. I’ll still poke my nose into my original question when I 1st signed up here - getting the latest SSE1 Opera/Seamonkey for it, but I don’t really expect many more, if any, websites to open vs. Tahr’s default Opera 12.15.