- This topic has 12 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Apr 30-3:46 pm by Brian Masinick.
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stevesr0
I have seen posters praising liqourix kernels, while others recommend looking to the age/power of the hardware.
I have had a problem with some debian kernels 5.15 and 5.16 that hasn’t been an issue with the antiX kernels I have used.
So, I am interested in the major differences between kernels from:
(a) kernel.org
(b) debian repos
(c) antiX repos
(d) liquorix.netThis was summarized a bit in post # 57292, but doesn’t discuss a strategy for switching from one “type” to the best alternative depending on the problem experienced.
In my case, with the two recent debian kernels (v.s.), pipewire/alsa wouldn’t detect a usb connected headset that 5.10 antiX kernels had no problem with.
(Since my usb headset works great with the antix kernels, my driver is curiosity,but I believe others have issues would be easier to manage if different problems associated with the origin of the kernel was identified.)
stevesr0
Brian Masinick
I can’t comment with accuracy about ALL of the differences between these kernels, but I can make a few comments about them.
1. The kernel.org versions are the “stock”, standard Linux kernels. These are the basic kernels; all of the others originate from the source code versions here.
2. Debian repos. These are standard kernels used on Debian systems. While I haven’t examined them recently, I believe that they probably are “general purpose” kernels, intended to work across a broad set of conditions. As such, they are likely, overall, to work well, but may not be particularly “optimized” for any particular workload or use cases. If any, I’d imagine they may be best suited for server workloads.
3. antiX repos. These kernels are definitely intended to work particularly well with an interactive workload, at least the last ones I examined. They also, depending on which version you select, are likely to work very well with a broad section of systems that were developed near the timespan of the kernel you’re using; so the 3.* (older releases) and 4.* kernel series are most likely to support the oldest systems. At least up to the most recent ones I tested, I now have one system, an Acer Aspire 5 Model A515-55 laptop, that until last checked, did not recognize the system at all (that’s a FIRST; all previous systems I’ve owned worked with 100% of the releases and kernels; this is still your best shot for most systems, especially old ones.
4. Liquorix kernels are well optimized for low latency (fast interactive response) on recent vintage systems; you may also have success on older computers provided you select an available 3, 4, or early 5 series kernel that still supports the hardware you’re using. If you DO get a liquorix kernel and you are using exclusively browsing and client-server stuff, this is an excellent alternative to the antiX kernels and in some cases you MAY find very good results for interactive workloads.
On any system that WILL boot for ANY of these kernels, my overall opinion is that, unless you are taxing your system and you have a sufficiently high system load and a very specific use case workload, you’re unlikely to notice a tactile, response difference if you’re using an antiX system driving any of these kernels. You’re more likely to see subtle differences between running various distributions.
In the past, particularly 10-15 years ago, I noticed a lot more difference between the speed of Red Hat and SUSE distributions, which are decidedly tuned in favor of server workloads to that of distributions like Slackware, Debian, MEPIS/MX, and antiX, which are quite responsive to interactive workloads. In recent years, I haven’t noticed a particularly sharp, noticeable difference in the interactive response of various distributions; most “feel” similar in response when starting the same or comparable application workloads.
So are there differences? Very definitely; check the kernel parameters between MX Linux and antiX for instance. Both work quite well, but antiX is strongly tuned to be efficient and conservative of resources, and when used with “lean” applications, it rewards you with snappy performance. If, however, all you do primarily is to open Web browsers, file managers and simple terminal applications, it’s difficult to detect any differences, but there are quite a few differences in the values selected for the tunable parameters between these “sibling” distributions.
Summary: for “ordinary” workloads, most people won’t notice much difference between these systems UNLESS hardware support is an issue; then each of them has to be evaluated to determine whether or not they’ll support your system.
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Brian Masinick
andyprough
This is excellent info Brian, I’m taking notes.
Kernels are weird, just from a benchmarking speed perspective, I recall the 4.19 kernel was beating everything more modern up to the 5.10 or 5.11 kernel in recent times on the benchmarking websites like Phoronix. The common wisdom is that a newer kernel will always be faster, but that’s not necessarily the case at all – depends on the workload, the age of the equipment, and depends a lot on the various regressions that are introduced with newer kernel versions. Also, older LTS kernels like 4.19 have undergone hundreds of point releases, which means hundreds of rounds of bug fixing and fine tuning. antiX has made frequent use of the 4.9 kernel in recent years, which has also received years of loving care and fine tuning as an LTS kernel.
Brian Masinick
This is excellent info Brian, I’m taking notes.
Kernels are weird, just from a benchmarking speed perspective, I recall the 4.19 kernel was beating everything more modern up to the 5.10 or 5.11 kernel in recent times on the benchmarking websites like Phoronix. The common wisdom is that a newer kernel will always be faster, but that’s not necessarily the case at all – depends on the workload, the age of the equipment, and depends a lot on the various regressions that are introduced with newer kernel versions. Also, older LTS kernels like 4.19 have undergone hundreds of point releases, which means hundreds of rounds of bug fixing and fine tuning. antiX has made frequent use of the 4.9 kernel in recent years, which has also received years of loving care and fine tuning as an LTS kernel.
Andy, you are right on with your comments too. I want to emphasize once again that for the vast majority of people, there simply isn’t much PERFORMANCE difference to concern oneself, especially those who are simply using their system for personal use. As you cite, the primary reason to search for a different kernel is to support specific hardware that doesn’t function properly. Even then, I’d look for other causes before automatically thinking there is a kernel issue; there may be issues, but on the whole, the kernel logic itself is solid. I recommend looking for a different kernel only in cases where there is a kernel crash repeatedly or complete failure to boot; then go through a process of elimination to determine the root cause of the failure.
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Brian MasinickThanks Brian and andyprough for responses.
I actually was not focused upon “speed” differences, but those are interesting comments.
The overall takeaway I get is that most kernels will work for the basics and (presumably) the reasons for seeking/avoiding a specific kernel are:
(1) security fixes
(2) hardware not working
(3) software not working (my issue with the Debian 5.15 and 5.16 kernels on an antiX system).
(4) desire for specific feature (real-time kernels?)stevesr0
Brian Masinick
andyprough
There’s probably a few other categories. The one I’m most familiar with is for people like me who are fans of the writing and work of Richard Stallman and of the Free Software Foundation, who promote the 4 software freedoms and the use of purely libre licensed software. For people like me there’s the Linux-libre kernel, which attempts to remove all non-free software blobs from the kernel. I use this libre kernel in my antiX respins, which gives the added advantage of being smaller in size for a more minimalist approach.
Brian Masinick
Libre kernels are legitimate too.
I didn’t think about them, but they are definitely another choice, and for truly minimal size, that helps too.--
Brian Masinick
blur13
A libre kernel requires libre hardware as well, I suppose?
Brian Masinick
A libre kernel requires libre hardware as well, I suppose?
Yes, otherwise you either do without some features of your hardware or in the worst case it doesn’t work.
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Brian Masinickandyprough
If you need wifi then you will often need to purchase a wifi dongle with an Atheros chip, which typically run without any non-free firmware. You can buy a lot of them for cheap on ebay, the Kali Linux penetration tester guys love them and are constantly buying and selling them there. They work quite well. Some laptops already come with Atheros wifi cards, like my 10-year-old Samsung laptop.
Other than that, if your hardware is 5-6 years old or older, you will probably be able to run everything fine with the Linux-libre kernel. Some newer hardware will not run. But I frequently run a 2019 laptop with no problem with Linux-libre. Avoiding newer Nvidia cards (of course) is a good idea, but it runs fantastic with any of Intel’s integrated graphics. Find a 5-year-old system with an Intel CPU and without Nvidia graphics, and buy yourself a $10 Atheros wifi USB dongle, and you’ll probably be all set.
Do the kernel modules that are available/loaded change when you use a different kernel on an installed system?
stevesr0
Brian Masinick
Do the kernel modules that are available/loaded change when you use a different kernel on an installed system?
stevesr0
Generally speaking, yes. In most cases kernel modules are specific to each kernel. I hesitate to say “always”, because there may be an exception to this rule.
As far as I know though, each kernel has modules that are built and rebuilt every time the kernel is patched or updated. They may have similar, or even the same, kernel module source code, but the kernel module image is unique; I’m fairly certain about that.--
Brian Masinick
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