Performance testing on an old Pentium II-400

[Moderator BobC]

FYI, I found that the IceWM system monitors use 1% or less of CPU vs conky used 8 or 9% on average.

If I was using that system and wanted to run the conky, I think I would change the interval to at least 5 seconds, maybe 10.

Also, the best setup for it is to use the lightest apps that will do the job, have all normally used apps on the toolbar, and avoid using menus.

PS: min-icewm or minimal-icewm would be the best IceWM desktops to use as they would load the least other programs

• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by BobC.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by BobC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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+1

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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At lunch today I was able to boost the memory from 256 mb to 768 mb and get it loaded to the hard drive. I had some odd video issues where what was on the screen stayed there after it should have gone away. Not sure how else is can be described. I will see if it does it again after rebooting…

Tested after work and it booted and ran from the hard drive just fine. Firefox eats the CPU alive though. Probably no solution for that other than a lighter browser. It’s no big deal as the purpose of setting it up was to have a machine available that would show how things run on a very slow machine.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by BobC.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by BobC.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Can’;t swear to it. Ditched a bunch of my old 32 bit pentiums.

https://packages.debian.org/buster/luakit

https://packages.debian.org/buster-backports/luakit

https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/luakit

https://sourceforge.net/projects/netrider/

More of a poke and hope post by me.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Moderator BobC]

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Roky, I appreciate the suggestion but I think I want to limit to things that are easy to install and supported.

I am installing chromium, falkon, palemoon non-sse, seamonkey, slimjet, and vivaldi from the package installer.

Any suggestions for others?

[Moderator BobC]

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So far only palemoon non-sse works.

chromium, falkon, seamonkey, slimjet all won’t run due to old CPU.

Trying others

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I wonder if you went back to an OLD Seamonkey release if you would have better results?

At http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/seamonkey/releases/ you can find Seamonkey releases dating back at least to 2015.

Similarly you can go back about the same length of time with old Firefox software. Not sure it will help, but if these are experiments it may be worth a look:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/diskimages/20041210/ indicates that the actual software is MUCH OLDER than 2015, so there may be “hope” by looking around in http://ftp.mozilla.org.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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Badwolf works

Konqueror won’t run

Midori starts but doesn’t run well

Epiphany works but very slow to bring up pages, pegs CPU at 100% like firefox

Vivaldi won’t run at all

[Moderator BobC]

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Brian, i am trying to find good browsers to reccomend to people who are still running these old computers.

I am trying to find browsers that both work and run efficiently.

Myself I loaded this as a test system that I can use to make sure what I am suggesting will be things that will be reasonable to run on these old things.

Maybe at some point it will make sense for antiX to have a 32 bit oriented setup with lighter applications than on the 64 bit system. For example, Firefox is absolutely intolerable. It takes minutes to come up. Any normal person would have thought it crashed.

Not too many more to try…

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Older browsers will undoubtedly have insecurities but I suspect that the really old Firefox and Seamonkey browsers will allow access to simple content.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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Badwolf can’t login to the forum.

That leaves only palemoon non-sse that actually works reasonably

[Moderator BobC]

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Yes, if security isn’t needed. Then more options are available. At that point any of the viewer program capable of following links might work. antiX viewer was one of those. I forget exactly what its flaws were.

I was trying to limit my search to ones able to login and post here.

Netsurf was another that could run but not login here.

[Moderator christophe]

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BobC,

Badwolf can’t login to the forum.

I’m surprised to read that — because badwolf has always worked for me on 32-bit, logging into our forum.

I guess something different about the PII?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by christophe.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Moderator BobC]

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Maybe yours is installed differently?

Its true that the P2 is a cripple

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