DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME - YOU MIGHT HURT YOURSELF OR PISS SOMEONE OFF
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whooooooooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Got it - nailed it - I mean I have 3 Firefox windows open - all playing Flash Youtube on top of each other - no skipping - works - PLUS made a skype call and asked my friend "How is my voice?" - "Fine" he said "A little loud and distorted" - I had the Alsa Mixer cranked up into the RED so that explains the over-drive.
I did this on a Dell Latitude with 256K RAM (tiny/pathetic) and a 2Ghz processor with a wifi antenna shooting signal 1/4 mile. Typical speeds vary greatly, but are about 1MB - 1.5MB when things are working well. As I type this now round-trip pings to google are showing at about 18 - 20 ms.
You should note that PUPPY LINUX - .y as she is - version Lupu 5.25 - will not even run Firefox 3.6 or 4.0 on my machine and play flash, let alone do skype at the same time. Firefox locks up and crashes as soon as I fire up test.
I was able to get Seamonkey on Puppy to work on Puppy - for about 20 minutes - then it locks up.
I was able to get the Puppy Browser - small cute thing - I really liked it - to work and play Flash for prolonged periods. But I could not get
It should be noted that Windows 2000, SP4, can barely do this with ONE Firefox music video window going plus skype, but often locks up or destroys my voice VOIP signal.
Tiny Core was able to do THREE music videos streaming on Firefox, Flash10FF (special module), PLUS maintain Skype connection, plus maintain voice quality, and never locked up.
THE TEST:
www.wingsofaaliyah.com - the ultimate test of bandwidth, memory and robust aps - click past the perfume page. Layer that on top of a Skype call and do it at 1MB bandwidth and you are absolutely testing the limits of your wifi, memory, Firefox, Flash, Skype and Alsa sound mixer.
My friends say I am hard on things. A material scientist I know well says I break the Briggs and Stratton engines he gives me to generate my power living at anchor because I overload them and he's right.
I do the same things to software, cars, boats, surfboards (love snapping them on a monster wave), and my friends - I love PUSHING THEM TO THEIR LIMITS - so they can deliver excellence they have never done before. I do it to my kids in our KCK labs too - where they have to assemble a PC from parts on the bench, run BIOS, FDISK and FORMAT and get a prompt - all in under 20 minutes.
Only Kids Computer Kamp grads can do that - no other lab, class or school teaches that - its a rush - fastest time so far in 30 years - 9:56 by a 14 year old.
Here is the sequence I used to try to break Tiny Core. It didn't break.
1. CLEAR ONBOOT.LST - Robert had me put in some stuff to preload Flash - which I had removed - but bottom line - it has to boot in this sequence (at least for me)
kmaps.tcz
setproxy.tcz
alsa.tcz
alsa-modules-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz
alsaconf.tcz
alsamixergui.tcz
skype-2.1.0.81.tcz
2. Next I manually go into alsamixer - Terminal - type alsamixer - and jack all levels up up up and check all mutes. It is important to note a couple of things. I can automate this in a script today.
a) PRESS F5 to get ALL DISPLAYS. Alsa mixer doesn't show everything unless you do this.
b) Using right arrow I quickly go across and hit M to unmute anything.
c) Then I start over - left to right - and crank everything up into the red - overdrive. Its pretty evident later when the music is playing that the amps are all torqued up and it would be better to bring levels down a bit - but this is an over-drive test so its right the way I did it.
d) I run my MIC on a jack - Dell Latitude Laptop - that is also known as a Mic/Mono Out Jack. There is a setting in Alsa Mixer for that - make sure it is MIC. I also have a MIC1 and MIC2 - Alsa Mixer shows that - I use MIC1.
e) Got it? Hit ESC.
Again, I can write a script for this - no problem - so its all loaded at boot.
3. Skype should already be loaded. DO NOT load Firefox or Flash until you test this. Skype is the problem child - the pain - get that working first so you know if it stops working you can go hunt down the offending software.
a) Run Skype - log in - go to Options - Audio/Sound, Make a test call.
b) I use DEFAULT AUDIO on both Mic and Speaker. I UNCHECK "Let Skype Manage/Adjust" my settings. But it seems to work either way.
c) As expected - I hear the Skype Girl pretty loud - distorted - and my Mic - a Sure SM51 Professional Stage Mic on a 20 foot leash jacked into the side of my laptop - rips - over-distorts with these settings - and it plays back as expected - loud loud and double loud.
d) Go call a friend - they should be able to hear you over-modulated and distorted.
e) Now go back into terminal - alsamixer - and bring your levels down. I used to own a 20 bay recording studio. You want to know what your gear sounds like when you have TOO MUCH WATTAGE pumping through the equipment so you can control your levels. Robert S once said to me DO NOT USE CAPS - IT IS SHOUTING - and he's right. I am a classical pianist - but there is a place in all music for pp (very soft) and FF - and even louder. Never forget the 1812 Overture pal - LUV those cannons.
4. Now its time to see if Firefox, Flash and Skype can play nice together. They can't on Windows, they can't on Puppy and I am damn sure they can't on Damn Small Linux or any other Linux distribution unless it would be specially torqued just for this test - and useless to do anything else.
They do on Tiny Core.
a) First - at a terminal I type tce-load -i firefox and that loads.
Again, this could be automated at boot with onboot.lst - but that may be a bad idea as Skype takes awhile to load and Firefox may clog the Skype load or jump ahead in memory or something. Dunno - but prefer to let Skype - the pain in the butt - load right after Alsa, which I load first (above).
b) After Firefox loads its time for Flash - I use the special "Made with Love and a bit of my Blood" Juanito version - flash10ff.tcz. I tried the regular one and it did NOT work, but I think it was originally made for OSS or something - dunno. I want the one that works.
At a terminal - tce-load -i flash10ff
And that loads.
5. Now its time to break it - or try. You should have both a Skype Icon (top) and a Firefox icon under it.
a) Start Skype - go test your sound and audio signals - make a test call. If it doesn't work then perhaps something else loaded. Perhaps you changed a JACK/MIC setting. Start over or go to the forum. Another great tool to test is a SOUND RECORDING program with Mic levels so you can see if your mic is working. I learned how to use Alsa Mixer running Puppy and AUDACITY - that's where I got inspired to create this test and really torque Alsa Mixers and get this working. Give the Pup credit where due - it is an inspiring, beautifully done operating system - the best of its kind in my opinion.
And Tiny Core is the best of its kind as well - which is "When it absolutely, positively has to work and work FAST - and take memory and CPU abuse - and still work - use Tiny Core."
... my two cents.
b) Got skype? Got your Alsa mixer levels nice - not all jacked up in the red like I did? Make a call - ask your friends if you sound ok - fix your levels.
c) Now go fire up Firefox with Flash and visit
http://wingsofaaliyah.com - click ENTER SITE - and crank up the tunes (which won't even run in Puppy - sorry man).
d) Do that again - and again - and again. Yeah, its an ugly mush of sound - but it worked - I had 3 going plus a Skype call before coming here to type this. You probably just want to listen to ONE song at a time and its probably best to turn it off when you make a call anyway.
The point is Tiny Core was able to handle it - get em all loaded - and worked well without skipping on a Dell Latitude Laptop with 256K Ram, 2Ghz CPU, mounted on a Windows 2000 NTFS partition (choke baby choke), and Puppy could not - sorry man - Tiny Core the Cat beat the Puppy on this abusive test.
I love Puppy Linux and I love the folks over there. I think Barry made a really really great package and I think everyone should use it - try it - keep an install on their drive for many many things. Its a great environment.
BUT - every time I browse there - go online there - whatever - and then come back and fire up Tiny Core - the speed difference is not just noticeable - its HUGE - things in Tiny Core go KA-BOOM - RUN - NOW -GO - BLINK - and they run.
Most of Puppy also runs just fine - and its all really really smooth - Barry did a great job of making a smooooooooooooth, painless install and get on line wifi etc. - works really well.
Except Firefox crashes there and the other browsers run slow - sorry man. Wish it was different and it probably will be soon. They're pretty good about fixing stuff at Puppy - its a very well supported package.
And yes - I come to Tiny Core - another well supported package - but I have to "TEST - BREAK - ASSEMBLE" the tools to get the job done. For some folks it ain't worth the extra performance and speed.
BUT WOW - WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!! Tiny Core is a blazing rocket compared to the competition -and it works, runs, doesn't crash - done.
Now I am gonna try to get some tests with the stuff made by my best friends at Arch, Ubuntu and a few others. I will let you know how it goes.
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