Best Puppy for an eMachines E350?

[Bushbuck]

I've got an eMachines small laptop (circa 2010) that I am trying to put Linux on, for a neighbour who wants to try a computer instead of a mobile phone. This is someone of my age (mid 60s).

Which Puppy would you choose, or is this computer a lost cause? RAM is 1GB.

This is just intended to give the neighbour a bit of a taste of using computers, and their benefit, not a long term thing.

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I was a user on the old forum, but don't think I ever registered for this one. I'm still a daily Puppy user, so thank you!

[mikewalsh]

Hallo, @Bushbuck . Nice to see ya back.....and to the "new" Forums"!

As you can see, rockedge's forum, while still pHpBB-based, is now the newest version.......and has rather more in the way of features. Looks OK, doesn't it?

2010 eMachines, huh? And one GB..... Hm. Can we have some specs, please; we know the make.....what model? What CPU? We know the amount of RAM.....oh, you know the drill by now!

It may be better to stick with a 32-bit Puppy rather than 64-bit (which it will almost certainly run). Personally, I'm leaning towards something like radky's DPup 'Stretch'; @mikeslr has performed a lot of RAM/CPU consumption tests over the last few years, and frequently recommends it for minimal resource usage. I've used it myself in the past, and liked it; it's a nice, solid, easy-to-use Puppy, with plenty of radky's neat little touches all over the place, and will still be capable of running something like an up-to-date Firefox. Those are just MY thoughts; others may have better ideas.

(I'm thinking along these lines; we want Puppy to make a "positive" impression on your neighbour, don't we? I'm the same age-group as them, and I know perfectly well - from personal experience - that if something like this doesn't go well for ME from the beginning, then it never gets a second chance).

Over to you...

Mike.

[Bushbuck]

Hi Mike, and thanks for the welcome,

It's an eMachines E350 10.1 inch Netbook (Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz, 1GB, 250GB disk, Webcam, Win 7 Starter) and as you say, from circa 2010. The brand became Acer later, I think.

I stuck a Sandisk 240GB SSD in it ("up to 530 MB/s read speed"), so it's not using the original mechanical drive.

The CPU is dual core, It was surprisingly adequate (Windows 7, so like a small pony with a fat man on its back), and I used Tahrpup 6.0 on it using a memory stick a few years ago without thinking it was sluggish. I'd probably get away with using something like Bionic. It's going to be used for browsing, probably over WiFi which I know it can do.

You're right that a good impression is what is needed here. I know how to configure Puppy, so it's preferred over other small footprint Linuxes.

[stevie pup]

I'm the same age-group as them, and I know perfectly well - from personal experience - that if something like this doesn't go well for ME from the beginning, then it never gets a second chance

Interesting comment Mike, I'm in same age group and I have a similar approach. That is, if something doesn't work straight "out of the box" then generally I will just try something different. I can't really be bothered to mess around with something that doesn't work.

I thought it was just me getting idle in my old age, but it appears there are a few of us that think the same.

[wiak]

I've got an eMachines small laptop (circa 2010) that I am trying to put Linux on, for a neighbour who wants to try a computer instead of a mobile phone. This is someone of my age (mid 60s).

Which Puppy would you choose, or is this computer a lost cause? RAM is 1GB.

This is just intended to give the neighbour a bit of a taste of using computers, and their benefit, not a long term thing.

---

I was a user on the old forum, but don't think I ever registered for this one. I'm still a daily Puppy user, so thank you!

Don't know if the same model, but I have an old emachines netbook - works surprisingly well even on more recent 64-bit KL distros: viewtopic.php?p=68370#p68370
Yes, would be even more responsive on old Bionic-based distros, but fine on KLV-Airedale even (and KLA or KLU distros maybe even more responsive so no need to use really old distros like BionicPup really). However, depends what exact model netbook you have, and the processor in it, of course.

[wizard]

The N450 CPU is 64bit, single core, hyper-threading, about 15% better than just single core, but not as good as a true dual core. Power wise, it has a Passmark v9 score of 302 which is about on par with a Pentium M single core.

The 1gb ram is your biggest bottle neck and it would help a lot to increase it to 2gb.

You could try one of the 64bit distros, but if it is to slow I would opt for a 32bit. In either case internet use will be the most taxing, and video streaming will be a stretch.

If you do want to try a 32bit for internet and video streaming, I'd suggest Frienldy-JammyPup32 from here: viewtopic.php?t=9972

It's been setup for just such use and includes extended help files for new users.

For any distro you choose, be sure to use: pfix=nocopy in your grub entry to free up more ram. Also, you should setup a swap-file of about 2-4gb. This should effectively give you more ram, especially since you have a ssd.

wizard

[mikeslr]

Hi wizard,
I'm glad you mentioned JammyPup32 and Friendly-JammyPup32. I no longer run 32bit OSes so only know about them from posts; and have a flaky memory. You're post prompted me to want to add JammyPup32 and Friendly-JammyPup32 to the Puppys mentioned on this thread, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=9701 and discovered that you already had, but the link to Friendly-JammyPup32 was not provided in that post.

For Bushbuck info, I'll quote what you wrote there:

"It uses 20% less CPU and 100mb less ram than Bionicc32 and Dpup Stretch 7.5...JammyPup32 is based on Ubuntu and is a long term support version. That plus easier access to more applications"

And add, from my experience with wizard's other 'Friendly Remasters' he take great pains to provide an OS with Help files and Applications easing the learning curve those unfamiliar with (Puppy)Linux might have.

[wizard]

@mikeslr

but the link to Friendly-JammyPup32 was not provided in that post.

Thanks Mike, my bad, has now been corrected.

wizard

[houndstooth]

It's an eMachines E350 10.1 inch Netbook (Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz, 1GB, 250GB disk, Webcam, Win 7 Starter) and as you say, from circa 2010. The brand became Acer later, I think.

I stuck a Sandisk 240GB SSD in it ("up to 530 MB/s read speed"), so it's not using the original mechanical drive.

If those eMachines are like Gateways (also now Acer), they weren't designed to be upgraded but mine is 2GB with help from Youtube.

Swap & pfix=nocopy on SSD are no-brainers.

I just did this myself to vacuum the fan & switch HD:

Code: Select all

Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N455 @ 1.66GHz
Max Speed: 1666 MHz
Current Speed of Core 0:1333 MHz, 1:1333 MHz
Core Count: 1
Thread Count: 2

[Bushbuck]

Thanks for the help, everybody. I tried Fossa (64 bit) to start with, and it functioned OK, but was painfully slow, exactly as you all predicted, Jammy didn't seem to copy the files (not sure what was going on there), so I tried Bionic 32, and that performed OK.

I handed it over on Thursday, and await a reaction. I think she likes me though.

[fernan]

My choice, in the 2 slow computers that I have, was tahrpup 32 in the older machine, bionicpup32 in the newer one.

But I'm pretty sure I have 2gB of ram on both machines. The older machine is an Intel Atom N455, 1.66 GHz, running tahrpup32. The newer one has an Intel Atom Z520 CPU @ 1,33GHz running Bionicup 32.

Anyway, the hardware is too slow to play internet videos smoothly or run CPU intensive apps. But fine to do other tasks. My mom (she is 79) uses it everyday to check emails, bank accounts and to run LibreOffice.

I can run even some Windows apps on the machine running Tahrpup 32, using Wine portable.