[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] Date Index Thread Index Search archive:
Date:Mon Jan 26 18:35:54 1996 
Subject:Re: Loading Poplog on a PC 
From:Ian Rogers 
Volume-ID:960127.01 

Richard Matthias (richardm@cogs.susx.ac.uk) wrote:
> : > From: "Ricardo Paloschi" <ricardop@cogs.susx.ac.uk>
> : >         I have a 486 SX 25MHZ with 8 Megabytes of memory and have succesfully
> : > loaded MiniLinux and Poplog on it. Both obtained from the Cogs FTP Server.
> : > Linux runs fine but poplog won't run. When I try to run Poplog I get a message
> : > saying 'insufficient memory to restore saved image' or something like that.
> : > The only way I can get Poplog running is if a create some virtual memory from
> : > Linux. This is not very good as it runs incredibly slow.

> I haven't use miniLinux (maybe Ian Rogers could offer more precise
> information), but it sounds like you should interpret the error message
> literally. Linux simply doesn't have enough memory to run poplog on your

The "miniLinux" is a 4 floppy Linux extracted by someone in Portugal for
some of his chums. A few people now see it as a virus - "go on, give it a
try, it's only 4 floppies after all..." :-)

In order to make it as simple to install as possible some compromises were
made. In particular:

    1. it is installed on a DOS partition which linux then fakes into a
       UMSDOS Unix-alike file system.

    2. No swap space is required by default

Point 1 means that it runs very slowly indeed. The UMSDOS file system is
extremely inefficient.

Point 2 means that you have to nose around in the manuals a bit (except
there are none) in order to set up a swap file. Note that a swap file
under a proper unix file system is slower than a swap partition, so a swap
file under UMSDOS will run like a half dead, lethargic slug that's been
super-glued to the table.

IMHO - ditch the minilinux and get a proper one.

    ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/redhat/current

is an excellent system

> As you say, you should create a swap file of around 12megs at least. You say
> this is slow on your system. Are you creating a swap partition on your drive
> or is the swap residing in a file on either a dos or linux partition. If your
> swap area is not in its own partition it will be very slow. Even if you have
> created the best possible setup, it will still be slow. You should have 16
> megs of memory to run Linux/poplog.

I've installed redhat 2.1 on my notebook (486DX-100, 12Mb ram, 36Mb swap)
and it works like a dream. I use ordinary Ved in an xterm in X and there's
a bit of swap activity the first time as ~3Mb of dead data pages are
pushed out to swap, but after that there's no swap activity and it's
pretty fast (naive factorial 1000 runs 50% as fast as the SPARCclassic on
my desk :-)

> : >         The other problem I have is once Poplog is running, the ENTER key does
> : > not seem to work properly, it acts as a RETURN key. This makes VED impossible
> : > to use.

> This is a common problem that is mostly not the fault of poplog. VED will
> load a terminal driver dependent on the TERM environment variable. I know for

Another problem with the minilinux is that it has very few keyboard maps:
1 Portuges, 1 US and a couple of others - but no UK map :-(

Ved does use a lot of emacs ctrl codes though. In this case <ctrl>-g is
mapped to vedenter().

Ian.