Which Puppy for 950 MHz Athlon with 128 MB RAM?

[noltron000]

Everyone has a reason to getting into Linux, or even the different distros. Personally, I just got into Ubuntu on my main computer less than a month ago. I do a lot of work with code, and I use a custom pc, and for my preferences neither windows nor mac really fit the bill. So, hooray! Linux! And first post about linux!

More on topic. I have this old (and I mean... old) computer that I want to fix up. The ultimate goal is just to sell it, and barring that, giving it away to a family member for minimal use. If I sell it in working condition, I expect like 80 bucks. Or less. ish. Rough ballpark. This was your TL:DR. Feel free to skip to the questions.

Stats
- Model: Gateway ATXSTF Select K7 - 950 (vintage year 2000)
- CPU: AMD Athlon - 950Mhz
- RAM: 1x128MB PC133 (3 dimm slots total; max supported 1.5GB)
- HDD: 40gb disk @5400rpm
- GPU: NVidia RIVA TNT 2 (125 MHz / 16MB)
- Other: sound card, network card, 2 cd drives, floppy drive, USB ports
- This is a 32-bit system

Details
Well I found this thing a while ago and have just gotten around to fixing it up. I tried booting it, BIOS worked but OS didn't. Windows ME was crap anyway. So I've been looking for an OS to add some polish and test it, and I thought Linux would fit like a glove. After doing some research, Puppy kept coming up. And I landed here. Anyway, I've since opened the PC up and started dusting it and replacing the thermal paste etc, formatting the drive, but I'll put it back together soon enough. Honestly, I'm not even sure if this thing runs OK. Some component may be old or broken, which might be why the OS didn't boot up last time.

Important note, once I check this machine is working, I am willing to dish out the 8-14 bucks required to add a half-gig or full-gig of ram to the system. Maybe, if its worth it when I sell it. Also I'm not married to Puppy, so if someone knows of something that fits even better, let me know.

Purpose
Aside from throwing an OS that works into the legacy machine to test it then sell it, I'm interested about exploring the Linux ecosystem. Personally, educationally, and of course for practical utility. I have an array of computers from 2000 to 2015-ish that are all in various conditions, and I bet I'll be putting linux on a couple of them.

Questions
OK... So you have all that background info. Great. Now, I have questions.

I was looking at the "official" builds on the website and saw BionicPup, FossaPup, and XenialPup (reflecting different core files in ubuntu I presume)...Which puppy linux distro/build would you recommend? I was getting BionicPup32, because I didn't see a 32-bit FossaPup. But I've also read XenialPup works just fine for old machines.

But, if you recommend none of the "official" puppy linux builds, which variant of Puppy Linux would you recommend? And, is puppy linux right for my purposes at all? What other Linux would you recommend? Debian? Arch? (Keeping in mind, I am looking for something a) gui+simple and b) legacy-friendly)

Thanks for the read I'm sure I'm making gross assumptions somewhere so feel free to step on my toes wherever you deem necessary. I'm here to learn about linux and use it.

[Geek3579]

I would make a live CD ROM for at least Xenial and Bionic, and try both. CDROMs are pretty cheap and the download footprint is small. Both are excellent and reliable, with good how-to snippets on the old Puppy forum, especially.

On one computer, due to ram limitations, I had to make a swapfile, which was fairly easy to do, once the OS had booted. It really rocked after that !! I have struggled to boot older computers with newer kernels and put it down to the old hardware not being supported.

[Kjellinux]

@noltron000

I'm currently undertaking a project with similar goals to yours. Much of my experiences so far are logged in the thread "Best 32 bit version with support beyond 2023?" (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3245). I have yet to summarise my conclusions.

I didn't see a 32-bit FossaPup

There IS a "FossaPup": viewforum.php?f=144&i=1. Of the 10 or so versions I have tested, this is my favourite.

There is a wide selection of lightweight Linux distributions. Depending on available RAM you might want to have a look at Tiny Core Linux, Puppy Linux, Slax, Bodhi Linux, Lubuntu, Zorin OS Light, Linux Lite or any of the others you will find if you google "lightweight linux". Two somewhat old distributions that are VERY lightweight are Damn Small Linux and Nanolinux.

[williwaw]

http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pu ... ppy-4.3.1/

some good references in the readme-files.htm

burning a cd is easiest before you buy more ram

[rcrsn51]

I have an array of computers from 2000 to 2015-ish that are all in various conditions, and I bet I'll be putting linux on a couple of them.

You will have more success by starting with a newer machine.

[mikeslr]

" RAM: 1x128MB PC133" which I think means the computer currently has a total of 128 Mbs of RAM actually available to do anything.
1st impression -- your kidding yourself. Even tahrpup to run properly requires 512 Mbs. Tahrpup preceded Xenialpup so its slightly older applications require slightly less RAM . Maybe Precise-LIte. Precise preceded Tahrpup. Precise-light is a remasterd-stripped version. But --and here's the thing-- the first time you open any web-browser capable of actually accessing ANY website it's going to require 150 Mbs of RAM. Add at least another 50 Mbs for each additional webpage. Maybe you'll be able to view a webpage if your add a SwapFile/partition. They are only 15 time slower than RAM. Who, exactly, will want a computer that will take several minutes to load each webpage?
2nd thought --having to do with the emphasis above on properly. The deprecated method known as 'Full Install' remains available. It is less RAM intensive. But it was created 12 years ago --about 200 'computer years' ago: think canal-boats and carriages-- when traveling on the Web was much less prone to malware attacks. A Full Install Puppy lacks the basic safety mechanism --separation of User from operating system-- built into Linux operating systems designed to run as "Full Installs". So, maybe Tiny Core of which I know nothing other than that it is 'tiny'; but have the impression that it is 'tiny' only because you can boot it with almost nothing but have to install anything to make it useful. After installing stuff, it ceases to be tiny. And you still will have the 'need 150 Mbs' just to access 1 webpage. See 1st Impression.
Final thought: a computer to use for anything other than accessing the web. LegacyOS 2017, https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=111457 and take the time to view the screenshots on that page and on its Sourceforge link. This is a beautiful fully fleshed out system capable of doing pretty much anything on even a low resource computer, except access the Web.

[amethyst]

Do you want access to the internet? You can access the net and do some basic text browsing with a text browser or use Opera Mini with an emulator (I still do). I think I used Puppy412 with that sort of specs. I would give away that to someone who actually wants it (not sure if anyone would actually be interested) or dump it. I would feel guilty to sell a thing like that.

[mikeslr]

Post breakfast: Ditto what amethyst wrote to which I'd add that it's unlikely that you'll find anyone willing to pay a price equal to the amount of time and resources you'd have to put in to make a 21 year old computer worth a 2nd look.
It may be worth your while to spend the $8>14 to max out the computer's RAM. With 1500 MB of RAM, the 32-bit Xenialpup should run OOTB; handle 'Web-work' with current Web-browsers; do pretty much anything most people use computers for and have a couple of years of life left.
Not to sell. But, with a little 'spit & polish' it may make a nice gift for a young relative; or a charitable donation. [Taking a tax deduction for the charitable gift, optional].

[amethyst]

Post breakfast: Ditto what amethyst wrote to which I'd add that it's unlikely that you'll find anyone willing to pay a price equal to the amount of time and resources you'd have to put in to make a 21 year old computer worth a 2nd look.
It may be worth your while to spend the $8>14 to max out the computer's RAM. With 1500 Mbs of RAM, the 32-bit Xenialpup should run OOTB; handle 'Web-work' with current Web-browsers; do pretty much anything most people use computers for and have a couple of years of life left.
Not to sell. But, with a little 'spit & polish' it may make a nice gift for a young relative; or a charitable donation. [Taking a tax deduction for the charitable gift, optional].

Do you think a modern browser will run with that hardware? I think it will suck in the cpu completely.

[mikewalsh]

I have an array of computers from 2000 to 2015-ish that are all in various conditions, and I bet I'll be putting linux on a couple of them.

You will have more success by starting with a newer machine.

@noltron000 :-

There's two ways of looking at Bill's statement.

Many people wish to use what they have, and if all you have IS a very old machine then the best you can do with it is to put a sympathetically age-related OS on it.....something that would have been "current" when the hardware also was. But you then run into the issue that software is being constantly upgraded all the time.....and especially in the case of something like a web-browser, an old one will no longer work correctly due to the way the modern web is coded. It's a constantly-moving target.

(My favourites have always been the Chromium-based browsers. I know many folks don't like them, much preferring Firefox, but I take the view that since Google are more or less single-handedly responsible for shaping much of the modern web's development, it stands to reason that their own browser is going to be pretty much compliant with new standards as they emerge.)

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

So, hence Bill's statement about having more success with a newer machine.....and from the sound of things, you do HAVE such a choice. Anyway, if your plan is to sell them cheaply then at the very least you need to ensure they have a functional web-browser (if nothing else), since most people spend a good part of their time on-line.....for a multitude of different reasons. And since many people are only interested in social media, it's going to have to be an up-to-date browser; Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In et al all bitch like a good'un if you're NOT on the very newest, all-singing, all-dancing version of your browser.

It's a good idea anyway. We may be able to run a lot of older software in Puppy; functionally, if a lot of it works OK, and does what you need from it, where's the need to constantly update it? Anything internet-facing, however, you take a big risk if you're not using up-to-date versions.....

Puppy frequently manages the impossible. Miracles, however, well; Pup can't always manage those.....there ARE limits, even for our favourite wee OS.

Mike.

[mikeslr]

@ amethyst. I hadn't considered the CPU limitation. [Read original post while having my first cup of coffee. By the time I revisited, I forgot its details. ] You're probably right.
Funny thing about Window XP: We may take pot-shots at Microsoft --and rightfully so about post Windows 7-- but for its day Windows XP was actually a pretty capable operating system. And with a little searching you can now find a free version. But, there really isn't any web-browser which will safely run under it. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/browser-s ... xp-system/

[amethyst]

@ amethyst. I hadn't considered the CPU limitation. [Read original post while having my first cup of coffee. By the time I revisited, I forgot its details. ] You're probably right.
Funny thing about Window XP: We may take pot-shots at Microsoft --and rightfully so about post Windows 7-- but for its day Windows XP was actually a pretty capable operating system. And with a little searching you can now find a free version. But, there really isn't any web-browser which will safely run under it. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/browser-s ... xp-system/

You may be right about Windows. If he can get XP going, he may be able to use one of the Palemoon clones like MyPal made for XP (I do, works well). The last Seamonkey released for XP also works well. I think I still used Windows 98 with similar specs (no good for web browsing though). Windows may indeed be the best option for that machine.

[noltron000]

Wow! So many comments posted literally while I was sleeping. Thanks everyone for your time to read over my circumstances.

@Geek3579 @williwaw:
Starting with a CD
Definitely going to start this whole process by burning some CDs, and just seeing what happens. Before buying any RAM or anything. I coincidentally have a pack of unused 700MB CD-Rs on hand, and here I thought I was going to end up just recycling them or giving them away. Sounds like I should set up a couple different versions of Puppy on these CDs.

@Kjellinux @mikeslr
...and of course, I'll also check out the other distros as well. This is time and energy to fix something that I think isn't quite worth the effort, but what makes it worth it is learning about these distros, live.

Either way though, I am sure you are right about fixing up the newest PCs first. Whoops, since I am doing the oldest one first... I mean, I'll switch to the other ones if I find myself hitting a bunch of snags, but I think for now I'm going to try to finish this thing I've started.

@mikeslr
About RAM
It looks like upgrading is going to be a must. If the machine works, I've decided to buy more RAM.

However, I do need to see if everything works first, so I'm going to hold off until I can test the machine, and unfortunately that means I should do so with its current RAM. Which also means, ...yeah its going to be tough to set up first run through. But I think, doable, since running a system and checking if the hardware works sounds lightweight. The hardest part is, well, what happens if something in the PC isn't working? Right?

I also looked at the other PCs I have on-hand to see if I could (temporarily) pull some out some RAM, and I found a 1GB DDR2 module...but I'm pretty sure that this motherboard will not support DDR2 RAM.

@amethyst @mikewalsh
About the...usefulness of this machine
Honestly, I don't feel bad about selling this machine; if someone is buying a pc this retro, I'd think they'd have an idea of what they are getting themselves into. There are 100% definitely better systems out there for less than what this would go for on the market. Even a raspberry pi would compete or beat this machine, ignoring any price.

That said, I am planning on cleaning it up to its best possible shape, so that whoever gets this, won't have a hellish experience, and I can also give it away as mentioned earlier. Anything free is a good price if you want it. If none of that is good enough, I'll just sell its parts.

Ultimately though, one of my goals is to keep this out of E-Waste, so dumping is something I'd rather avoid, not that it will make a huge difference in the world.

Anyway, thanks again for everyone's time and responses. If I missed something or didn't address something feel free to mention it again. In the meantime I'm going to research the links and distro mentions that everyone posted. I'm also waiting on some canned air to finish this up, but I'll return and post again once I have the PC rebuilt and a CD fired up. I might respond with some shorter messages before then but I have a lot to do and better get to it!

[Kjellinux]

@noltron000

However, I do need to see if everything works first, so I'm going to hold off until I can test the machine, and unfortunately that means I should do so with its current RAM. Which also means, ...yeah its going to be tough to set up first run through. But I think, doable, since running a system and checking if the hardware works sounds lightweight.

You can definitely test the machine with its current RAM using Tiny Core Linux. You will be quite limited in the applications you can run, but it will suffice for booting to make sure that the machine is indeed still alive.

[noltron000]

You can definitely test the machine with its current RAM using Tiny Core Linux.
...

This makes sense. I've heard about TinyCore; sounds useful for this. I think I'll go with TinyCore if only just for seeing if it works, and then buying more ram and testing again with TinyCore, and then switching to pup once I know everything works.

Edit: Didn't want to bump the post but wanted to come back and give a mini-update... I haven't touched the PC much since posting. But, I do intend to get into it this Sunday. Expect another update from this around then

Edit 2: Taking me more time than anticipated. A lot of life drama has been happening, YEESH! Anyway, I put the computer back together. I'm taking to calling it big bertha. Gosh I wish I took a picture of the old thermal paste. It was hard like plastic. Hey, well it looks like its working so far. it boots into BIOS, and I saw the CPU, RAM, CD Drives, etc. in the system. Still going to just try TinyCore out and see what its like, because hey why not. If all goes well (or not!) I'll add another post to this board, and get the RAM.

[mikeslr]

"Definitely going to start this whole process by burning some CDs, and just seeing what happens. Before buying any RAM or anything....
However, I do need to see if everything works first, so I'm going to hold off until I can test the machine, and unfortunately that means I should do so with its current RAM."

On a currently functional Windows computer, download Hiren's BootCD, Edited* https://www.hirensbootcd.org/hbcd-v98/* **and burn it to one of your CDs. The posted website lists all the many applications, most related to the testing and repairing, Hirens provides.
BurnCDCC 2.02, https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downl ... ftware.htm will burn the iso to a CD per hirens' instructions, https://www.hiren.info/pages/how-to-burn-iso

Ask if you want instructions on how to do the above using a Puppy, specifying which Puppy.
-=-=--=--
*Edited as, on checking, the current 15.2 version requires 2 Gbs of RAM. The link is to an old version which is unlikely to be so demanding.
** Edited as even version 9.8 requires more than 128 Mbs of RAM. On this webpage, https://www.hirensbootcd.org/old-versions/ you'll find an "Old Version" selection box with a drop-down arrow. The earliest available version of Hirens is 5.0; only a 26.38 Mb download. Perhaps it's RAM requirements are similarly meager. 6.0 is only slightly larger but has more RAM and hard-drive testing tools. Each version upgrade follow the pattern, more/newer tools, slightly larger package and likely slightly larger system requirements.

[stevie pup]

If the machine turns out to have some serious fault, and is to all intents and purposes dead, then fair enough, dump it. But if it does work, and you can do some basic things such as type a letter, look at some pictures, or listen to some music, (I'll come to the browser business in a minute) then I certainly wouldn't dump it. This isn't just down to the e-waste angle, although I do consider that, but another reason. Here's one example (out of many thousands). You know those old machines used for playing Edison wax cylinders? I wonder how many of those were thrown away in the late 1920's/early 30's, because "no one was interested". Look at the prices they fetch now! Ok, so we don't know if old pc's will ever become collector's items, but a lot of things have that I never expected. Look at all those toys I threw out as a kid.

Oh yes, the browser. This is something that crops up quite frequently, and whilst what is said is usually correct, it's never put into any context i.e. nobody bothers asking what the person is intending to do with it. There always seems to be this assumption that as soon as someone accesses the net, they're going to be logging in to all sorts. Not necessarily the case. In addition to a couple of full size laptops I have a little netbook. The 11 inch screen is too small for me to use it for any "proper" stuff, so all it gets used for is mainly trying out various Linux distros. Obviously while I'm testing something, at some point I will connect to the net, and perhaps have a look at a news site, or weather forecast, or check something else out. Although I can spend a good few hours using a pc without connecting to the internet at all. Anyone under the age of 30 can be excused for finding that hard to believe.

At no point have any of my personal details, bank info, passwords or anything else of that nature ever been entered on that machine, either in it's original Windows form, or with any Linux system. So would it matter if I was using an old out of date browser? Let's say the worst happened and somebody hacked into it, what are they going to find? Well they might discover that the other evening I was checking the price and availability of a particular brand of dog food! Wow, how exciting.

I know there are practical considerations, such as the fact some sites can't be accessed with old browsers, but even then some sites can be fooled into thinking you're using something different to what you actually are. As for things such as Facebook, you're certainly not going to be using that on a machine with those specs, no matter what browser you've got.

[JASpup]

I usually read all the replies before mine. This is an exception.

Your machine isn't worth 80 bucks (US). 20 is pushing it. You could probably get more parting it out.

If it were my machine and I intended to use Linux I would marry it to Puppy. Nothing is better if you're not super technical.

I use TahrPup on my similar era-machines, or Xenial mostly for modern browsers which I wouldn't even attempt with less than a half gig of ram. There are tricks for freeing up more when you get that far.

I'm typing on a Tahr XP machine. It multiboots XP, Xenial and Tahr better of the two.

[Phoenix]

" RAM: 1x128MB PC133" which I think means the computer currently has a total of 128 Mbs of RAM actually available to do anything.
1st impression -- your kidding yourself. Even tahrpup to run properly requires 512 Mbs. Tahrpup preceded Xenialpup so its slightly older applications require slightly less RAM . Maybe Precise-LIte. Precise preceded Tahrpup. Precise-light is a remasterd-stripped version. But --and here's the thing-- the first time you open any web-browser capable of actually accessing ANY website it's going to require 150 Mbs of RAM. Add at least another 50 Mbs for each additional webpage. Maybe you'll be able to view a webpage if your add a SwapFile/partition. They are only 15 time slower than RAM. Who, exactly, will want a computer that will take several minutes to load each webpage?
2nd thought --having to do with the emphasis above on properly. The deprecated method known as 'Full Install' remains available. It is less RAM intensive. But it was created 12 years ago --about 200 'computer years' ago: think canal-boats and carriages-- when traveling on the Web was much less prone to malware attacks. A Full Install Puppy lacks the basic safety mechanism --separation of User from operating system-- built into Linux operating systems designed to run as "Full Installs". So, maybe Tiny Core of which I know nothing other than that it is 'tiny'; but have the impression that it is 'tiny' only because you can boot it with almost nothing but have to install anything to make it useful. After installing stuff, it ceases to be tiny. And you still will have the 'need 150 Mbs' just to access 1 webpage. See 1st Impression.
Final thought: a computer to use for anything other than accessing the web. LegacyOS 2017, https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=111457 and take the time to view the screenshots on that page and on its Sourceforge link. This is a beautiful fully fleshed out system capable of doing pretty much anything on even a low resource computer, except access the Web.

Actually tahrpup can do fine with 256MB (excepting modern browsers). Although you are going to have to compile some stuff if you still want to use the internet through E-Links for example. Also in terminal mode with

Code: Select all

pfix=nocopy

, it will run at 80 or so MB.

[noltron000]

Hey friends, thanks for your time and effort in responding to this thread! I'm not one to leave things dangling, so I figure I'll post what I've been doing with this.

1) I've put the machine back together from cleaning. Wow there was a lot of dust.
2) In BIOS, everything appears to look good, I see all drives, and the correct notes for other hardware components.
3) I didn't bother booting puppy with 128mb ram like folks said. I have a boot CD ready though.
4) I tried booting TinyCore from CD on the machine, and I'm running into an issue where it hangs on its decompression.

If there's interest I can post more info about point 4, but I'm thinking of heading to TinyCore's forums for it. I will revisit this post when its resolved!