Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello All

I am setting up BookWorm Pup 32 for the first time.
This laptop will go to a new 'home' where people know only a little English.
At the moment the laptop (Dell Inspiron D800) has only 1GiB of RAM.
Never ran a Puppy with so little RAM before. (Will upgrade when I can buy some).

I need a little background help, pls. (1) Laptop has only 1GIB. (2) Bookworm has only the "Light" browser.
Question: Can I find/run a 32-bit browser in 1GiB RAM?
Question: Can anyone recommend a suitable 32-bit browser that will run in 1GiB. Light will not display YouTube.
Question: In general, what is the best way to download/install browser to BookWorm Puppy?

More comment: I tried to run uPupBB32 on the Dell - had a problem with Xorg. Blank screen (totally black).
I successfully booted/ran Precise Light.
Welcome help/observations.

Tnx from cobaka

For low amount of RAM.

You could setup the boot menu entry to use pfix=nocopy

That will not load all of Bookworm32 into memory.
Only what is needed to provide a working system, will be in memory.

Programs will start slower, but after loading into memory, will work just as fast as if already in memory.

For sure you need to have a swap file or partition. I would make it 3 or 4 GB size.

I cannot use 32bit OS's on my computer, so not able to see it working.
If it has zram setup for using RAM. (most new Puppies do use it)
That will help to make the 1GB work more like it is 2GB.

@cobaka

Bookwormpup would use a lot of ram once a browser was running. Since this PC probably has a old HDD,
setting swap may not help much if it's constantly in use. An older pup would use less resources.
As bigpup said, using 'pfix=nocopy' reduces ram use.

I have Palemoon 32bit v28.6.1, which I used to watch an Elvis youtube video in upupbb32-19.03
(51mb, low compression, very old version) see: https://www.mediafire.com/file/jyfqbm44 ... 1.pet/file
LATER version further down.

Your upupbb32 black screen is probably due modesetting failure. If you have intel video,
need to append grub kernel line with i915.modeset=0

Would you please run the following specs tests (& post output):

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -m1 "model name"

lspci | grep VGA

lspci -nn | grep etwork

Best way to change browser is to download an .sfs via the Internet -> Get Web Browser app
and then replace (rename) the .sfs to the adrv
You may need to do some resets in Setup -> Set default apps
and reboot

For web browsing on my old Acer Aspire One AOA 150, 1 gig RAM, I use Steve Pusser's MX Linux builds of Palemoon although the latest are in GTK3, they work well.
Currently at version 33.4.0.1, available here, scroll halfway down or so https://mxrepo.com/MX21packages.html After downloading, just
click on the deb and install.

As a second browser I use Alien Bob's chromium builds available from peabee's via get web browser, or directly from SourceForge, which is setup
to "run as spot", I don't rename the chromium sfs to adrv, I rename the original adrv.sfs to adrv.bak and don't load it. This is in S15Pup32.

Hello @ozsouth
(1) 'catting' & 'grepping' cpu model info -> Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1400MHz
(2) result of lspci | grep VGA -> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV28M [Geforced Ti 4200 Go AGP 8x] rev a1
(3) result of lspci --n | grep etwork
-> 02:03.0 network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4318 [Airforce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4318] rev 02

Thank you for info about Palemoon. I will defer doing anything with Palemoon until I resolve the points above.
At the moment the browser supplied with Bookworm is 'Light v48.0'.
I copied the info above from Dell D800 to my 'desk' PC. I believe I copied accurately.
Consulting PupSystem Info I can report: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller. NVIDIA Corporation NV28M.
Vendor ID=10de DeviceID= 0286, Rev a1. Kernel driver in use: noveau. Kernel modules: noveau.

I don't know how to change (or set) a different video driver.
On my desktop all text is 'as should be'.
By this I mean (for example) the terminal appears OK. Text inside Geany/or PupSysInfo appears OK.
Mouse Cursor is pixelated, but I can 'guess' where the mouse is pointing.
Only graphical icons are pixelated. On the RH side of the screen I see system info displayed, i.e. PC name, OS name, Linux version etc all on a black background. I see a similar block of info using FossaPup64 on my desktop PC (running Fossa 64CE).
I hope this info helps.

thank you.

Hello @bigpup
On booting: I see 'loading zram swap', then 'updating'.
I edited menu.lst so that pfix=nocopy.
thank you.

Cobaka

Report on performance of a Pentium M, running Bookworm32 on a 1400MHz clock.

The CPU is busy at 55 .. 100% (idling .. opening Wikipedia)
When the desktop is idle the CPU is a little under 60% busy.
Light is using ~168MiB RAM. Xorg is using ~72MiB.

RAM -> 428 / 990 MiB (with Light running Wikipedia)
Swap: 256Kib / 967MiB
File System 597MiB / 2.28GiB.

The figures above demonstrate the performance of an (approx) 20y.o. single core CPU running at 1400MHz.

@cobaka -
Your Pentium M 1400 was released in 2003. sse & sse2 capable (means Palemoon will work).
Nouveau driver is fine for your nvidia video card - if you boot to a black screen, add nouveau.modeset=0 to kernel line
BCM4318 is covered by builtin b43 driver & a decent size fdrv will have the firmware, so wireless should be ok.

Judging by the 428mb ram in use with light, I think firefox & chrome would struggle. Palemoon is lighter than those.

I made a Palemoon32 v33.04.01 adrv from wiz57's link - rename to suit your puppy. Needs glibc-2.28 minimum (bionicpup32 8.0 is only 2.27).
Tested OK in jammypup32. Use at own risk. see: https://www.mediafire.com/file/1a58po1z ... 1.sfs/file

In your previous thread about this machine, I made some suggestions about the nvidia video problem. What happened with them?

with only 1G of RAM, may want to change to tahrpup32. Take a look here, youtube plays very well.

I have noticed using the Puppy versions that have zram.

When first booted to the desktop.
CPU usage is high for a little time.
Then CPU usage drops to a low level.

Probably the time it takes for the zram process to compress what is in RAM.
Some boot process is still being done after the desktop is visible.

Then the CPU usage is now based on running a specific program or process.

If you boot to just the working desktop and check CPU usage.
Wait a minute and check it again.
Is it still at a high level?

@cobaka

This might be of interest for this computer:

viewtopic.php?p=133850#p133850

wizard