11 replies to this topic

[drmsucks]

I use an ASUS 1000HA netbook from time to time and love it! But, even with 2 GB of RAM and XP, it's a bit slow on occasion. So, I saw a Kingston SSD for $72 after rebate (yeah, I know, rebates s&ck!) and ordered it. Figured that even a cheap SSD would be faster than my 5400 rpm Seagate. And, it probably will be faster...

But, the point of this isn't to tell you that I bought a cheap SSD (who cares!); but, rather, to mention that I didn't check the power requirements for the SSD. Everybody knows that SSD's pull less power (in the milliwatt range) than electro/mechanical drives and generate low heat; both features good for laptop drives. Right? Nope!

All except for the V100 SSDNow Kingston series! My 160 GB Seagate Momentus drive has power requirements of: 2 watts (active) and .6 watt (600 milliwatts)(idle). The Kingston 64 GB SSD: 6.4 watts (active) and 1 watt (idle)!!

Wow! 320% of the power requirement when active and 167% of the idle power. I wish that I were British because then I could say that, "I am gobsmacked!"

[rokytnji]

LOL. Time for a bigger battery. One of those 6500mah or one of those huge 10500mah.

Speed is better I bet though. My cheap way out to speed up my EEEPC's is to run AntiX Linux on those cheap o phison ssd drives that Asus ships them with.

My M&A Companion Netbook I just bought came with 2gig of ram and Windows Home XP SP3. It runs a Atom Processor but with a ZIF 30gig 4200 rpm Pata Drive. Came with a 4500mah battery but I snagged a 6500mah battery from Amazon for it for $7.00 plus $5.00 to ship. These Netbooks are pretty much unknown to the general Public. They are tougher (waterproof keyboard and can withstand a 4 foot fall to hard floor. Kidproof) than Asus or Dell or HP Netbooks.

It runs XP OK. Nothing to brag about. I run Puppeee instead on it though off of external 4 gig cheap o SD Camera Flash card. Runs faster than Windows. Waiting till ZIF SSD drops in price before I yank out that 30gig ZIF 4200 rpm Pata.

[drmsucks]

I'll let you know what difference the SSD makes when I get it in - due here tomorrow but I'll be gone for a few days. If it speeds it up enough, I may try 7 on it. I put an Intel X25-M 120 GB SSD into my wife's ultralight ASUS running 7 and the speedup was dramatic! (Power requirement on that drive was 150 mw active and 75 mw idle!) Didn't measure boot times, program openings, etc, but everything now is (virtually) instant.

The computer came with a 6600mAh battery that's still about half good - I get about 3 hours of run time; was 5 - 5-1/2 hrs when new. That'll surely go down some feeding the hungry Kingston SSD!

I wish that I had your Linux expertise but I've only had Ubuntu and used it slightly. I've got an old Dell that I may ask for help to put a Linux distro on. I'd put Ubuntu on it but I have a Linksys wireless adapter that Ubuntu doesn't support - there's probably a workaround that you could help me with. Or a different distro that you prefer. I'll give you a shout in a month or two to see if you're interested.

[rokytnji]

Quote

I'll give you a shout in a month or two to see if you're interested.

I'll try my humble best to help. I have gotten better using Linux than when Broni first met me. Wireless support has gotten better in the Linux kernel. But Ubuntu has gotten real heavy (think Windows Vista) since Ubuntu has came out. Their are Ubuntu Spinoffs that run better on lower spec hardware than straight Ubuntu with Unity Desktop.

That is why you see me post with my off brand Linux Operating Systems that may not be mainstream like Ubuntu. My hardware is low spec mostly. So I have to make do with software that is not resource hungry. Like my Icewm Desktop shots and Fluxbox Desktop shots.

When you decide to try Linux on that Dell. Give me Laptop Specs and Linskys Wireless card Specs (ver number is important because chipset used (ralink,realtek,atheros,broadcom) is important).

I use something like this
http://cgi.ebay.com/...=item230f711dce

or this

http://cgi.ebay.com/...=item1e5c9d6646

which the current Linux kernel supports out of the box.

on my old gear for wireless.

[drmsucks]

Thanks - I'll lean on you shortly!

Now - off to San Antonio with stops at Stephenville for some Hard 8 bbq and Fredericksburg for a visit to Wildseed Farms. Might even get to Luckenbach and see if Willie's still out of jail, if there's time!

[drmsucks]

Update - Installed the Kingston SSD, debated whether to put XP back on and decided to go with Win 7 - good choice! Very quick and responsive, particularly given the hardware. Boots from full off to usable Desktop in about 25 seconds, including POST. The old XP install was >1 minute. But, more importantly, everything is quicker - program loads, saving, etc. With regard to the SSD power consumption, despite the specs, I haven't noticed anything excessive, including more heat. I don't run on battery for long periods of time so I really don't know if battery life is >, < or =. Plus, Win 7 is more power efficient, I believe, than XP.

But, the REAL news is that I'm using the same netbook and accessing Smartest Computing right now with FF 5.0 running on Puppy Linux 5.2.5, courtesy of rokytnji! (I'm running Puppy instead of Puppeee because I can't read!)

Installed it to an 8 GB SDHC card and everything worked out of the box - including wireless! (Okay, for some reason I can't use my VGA out jack !) And, of course, I've got the Linux noob set of problems - don't know how to update Adobe Flash, install Java (get a warning that it will install into the mnt directory, which is "dangerous"), etc. Bottom line is that everything is as quick under Puppy as it is under Win 7 (slightly longer startup/shutdown) and the new SSD isn't even involved!

rokytnji - let me know if you're still ready to "teach" some Linux. My suggestion would be to start here with Puppy, and move on to the Dell (desktop, btw) later.

[rokytnji]

You can give a man a fish. And he will be hungry the next day. Or you can teach a man to fish. And he will never starve for life.

http://www.wellminde.../pupsearch.html


Install java Puppy 5.25

Adobe flash pets

In Puppy. I update flash player by downloading latest tar file from adobe. I extract it with pupzip (single left click). Save it to /root/Downloads (make a Downloads folder in /root if you haven't already. Point firefox downloads to it.) . Everything I say below do with browsers closed.

Another thing I do is make a Folder Named Backups in /root of Puppy also so when I upgrade vtext files and such. I move the original to Backups folder in case I need to restore the original file.

I open rox file manager to see latest libflashplayer.so from Downloads folder that I extracted earlier from tar.gz.

I open another rox file manager window and maneuver (use up arrow in task bar) to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins

I open another rox file manager window and maneuver to my /root/Backups

I have 3 rox file managers open now.

1. I drag and drop the original /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so to my other rox window which shows /root/Backups and pick move from menu that opens up. I close the rox window that shows /root/Backups because I am done with it.

2. I drag and drop my /root/Downloads/libflashplayer.so to the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and select move from menu that opens. I then close both rox file managers as I am done with them.

I open firefox and check if my plugin took. If something goes wrong. I have my old saved /root/Backups/libflashplayer.so I can fall back to.

Java is a bit more complicated. Just find the latest Java Pet file available and install it. (single left click)

[rokytnji]

Just another suggestion for running Puppy.

After I get everything configured in my Puppy Linux frugal installs. I make a backup of my personal save file in my other partition. In this case I put my backed up personal save file in Windows XP on this netbook. I just drag and drop
my save file and select copy from menu that opens up.

Consider it a restore point like in Windows. If you break your Puppy install. You can boot with the

puppy pfix=ram

at the grub screen. This boots into ram with a fresh Puppy. You can then delete your old personal pupsave and copy over your saved one hen in Windows. Pick don`t save on shutdown. Because this will make a new save file which you don`t need Then reboot into your good saved settings.

[drmsucks]

Great info, thanks!

Flash looks easy enough; my problem with Java is this: Puppy has a Quick Pet that has a Java download (albeit out-of-date). When I start the download, all goes well until I get a message that says that Java is going to install into the mnt directory, that this is dangerous and recommends not to proceed with the install. There is no option to install into another directory.

Thanks.

P. S. Should we move this discussion, say from (including) #7, to Other OS?

[rokytnji]

Quote

P. S. Should we move this discussion, say from (including) #7, to Other OS?

Yeah, I think so. There are other ways to install java besides using the pet you found (link?)

Since you are new to this. You search skills for Puppy need a little hound dog in your DNA.

Edit: Moved the thread. Here is a .sfs of java that is more current. How to turn a .sfs into a .pet is in the thread.

http://murga-linux.c...9233a8b44ba1be1

If you did a frugal install to external drive. Instructions for loading/installing .sfs file .

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Squashfs

[drmsucks]

rokytnji, on 01 August 2011 - 08:00 PM, said:

Since you are new to this. You search skills for Puppy need a little hound dog in your DNA.

Need more than that!!

Not going to waste your time unnecessarily, so give me a day or two to digest what you've given so far and to do a little Puppy learning! I'll be back.

As an aside, I was wondering about not using Java on the Puppy install because it just introduces a malware vector into an OS that otherwise is pretty malware resistant. But, I've had it installed for so long (under Windows) that I don't even know what functionality I'll be missing - for the couple of hours that I've been using it, nothing hasn't worked, including an internet speed test that I thought was Java based. That said, I'll get it installed as a learning exercise; I may just uninstall it, though.

[rokytnji]

Quote

As an aside, I was wondering about not using Java on the Puppy install because it just introduces a malware vector into an OS that otherwise is pretty malware resistant

If paranoid or just being cautious. Absorb what I showed you in post #8.

By the way.You haven't told me if you did a frugal or full install on external drive yet.

If frugal. You made a personal save file like I show in post 8 but with your own personal name for it instead of my eeesave-harry1.2fs

You can backup your save file in Windows like I did with drag and drop (pick copy) into your My Documents folder in Windows or any data partition you have for storage or even a blank external extra pendrive. It does not matter if file system on Windows is NTFS or Pen drive is Fat32. That way if you get hit with a java exploit while in Puppy and it breaks anything (kinda doubt this as the only thing it might screw with is the browser and deleting cookies,cache,and history will fix browser. Most exploits are written for Windows and in Linux won't have no place to go because of file system structure). You can restore everything from your saved personal backup that you made.

That was why I showed what I do in post 8.