Finally configured everything in Puppy now the only problem is youtube videos streaming is extremely slow with Puppy linux. I've tried out all the internet browsers that came with Puppy 4.31 package, is there a fix for this? ( Apart from this problem Puppy has been the best option for my very old pc, i previously tried Ubuntu,Kubuntu, Fedora, Nimblex but they refused to install and work properly) any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Hi there,

1. What are the specs of the computer?

2. Slow compared to what? How does it compare to other Linux distros you have tried on this computer?

In my experience, streaming Flash video in Linux is a CPU-intensive task and framerate can be very low on underpowered hardware. You'll want at minimum a fast Pentium 4 and/or a decent video card if you want to watch fullscreen.

ps you may have better results downloading the video first, then watching it from your hard drive.

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Hi, thanks for the speedy response. The computer is a 566mhz 10 year old ibm with 256 rams, 20gb hdd. I couldn't get any of the other linux distros working properly on this. Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Fedora kept crashing and loading very slow, i also encountered blocky,colour distortion, pixelation problems when using them, which i've never had using Windows ME (the OS that was originally on this pc). Video streaming with puppy linux is pretty slow compared with windows ME. Would a different browser help and if so which are the best one to use with Puppy and are they easy to install?

I will try downloading to HDD and see how it goes.

Those are pretty low specs. I tried a puppy based distro the other day called BrowserLinux. It played flash flawlessly on a machine that is usually pretty jerky even though I was running the OS from a thumb drive. it might be something to look at, although I don't know what, if any, improvement you might see. Also the flashplayer 10.1 prerelease works much better for me than anything previously.

http://www.browserlinux.com/
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

HTH

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It is normal for Flash to work better in Windows than Linux (unfortunately)... the Flash player is not open-source software and thus we are at Adobe's mercy.

I am not sure what your budget is or where you live. Here in New York, you can find second-hand Pentium 4s on Craigslist in the $75-150 range. Or if you prefer something brand new, the Acer Revo is only $199 and would make a cute little web-surfing computer.

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I'd also suggest Browserlinux.
There is an MPlayer further down on that page. When you install that, see how fast that will work.

Another well equipped Puppy for older hardware is this
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42553
Well worth the download and try, if only for its looks.

Another way to be able to view those Youtube videos is to right-click on the name of the one you want, select "Copy link location", then from the Menu of Puppy under Internet, click on You2pup and paste the address of the video there.
It will download the video file and you can view it offline.

I too had extremely slow and or no flash playback with firefox on my fave OS Puppy, and tried un/reinstalling flash/Firefox with no luck. I installed Opera and have no problems with flash playback now. Super fast.
Puppy lucid on a 1.66Ghz, 2Gb RAM Toshiba craptop.

Keep in mind two other things that can slow down viewing video on the web.
One is not having much memory.
A swap partition will not help in this case since the very act on swapping memory to and from the swap partition or a temporary swap file slows things up.

The other is having a lot of applications and games installed.
It is that much more that Puppy has to keep track of and can eat up memory that could be used for the cache in viewing online video.

If you have the room, you might try a puplet that is made specifically for browsing. I seem to remember someone make such a puplet.