Changing the kernel

[Member seaken64]

anticapitalista asked the developers about what kernel to use over on the Developers forum (I butted in). I have a question for the general forum on that subject.

What happens if I load up a Live antiX USB and the kernel has been updated to support newer hardware but no longer supports my old hardware. Maybe I’ll get a black screen? But if that happens I can reboot and choose “Safe video” or “failsafe” and try again, right? So, lets say I have an old P-III and an old GeForce and the new kernel doesn’t support it. But I get into the desktop with Vesa video, or some boot cheat code. Can I then change the kernel and remaster to get the full antiX working?

I’m really sketchy on the kernel and how and why to change it. But I am going to start learning how to change the kernel. My hope is I can beat my current record of 20 years for keeping an old system alive using linux.

Seaken64

[Moderator christophe]

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I recently did this for an old AthlonXP, circa 2001.

I had to actually make a CD, since it wouldn’t boot via USB. It has an old GeForce2x video card. The antiX 17.4 CD booted up, but the video was horribly slow. And the system froze up on me during the installation process. I rebooted & used the safe mode option, and it used xvesa. That gave me passable performance, and I was able to install the system.

After reboot, I used the Control Centre to try to install the Nvidia video driver. It tried, but it eventually told me that the card is too old, and there is no supporting driver. So I just kept the xvesa driver. That’s the only method I know of to test out old hardware. You could try old kernels from the “antiX-cli-cc” terminal script, but I don’t know how old to go, except if someone could give you a lead on a specific kernel to try (that fits better with your particular hardware – and then beware of old, outdated kernels without recent security patches, if that matters to your situation). Perhaps trial & error, and give your specific hardware info on the forum if/when you get stuck?

Updating the kernel on live USB is an easy 2-step process. Dolphin Oracle has done a video tutorial on this. He goes through it very clearly (better that I could outline it). Of course, beware that a live USB may not boot on older hardware, and the performance would (I have to think) be better if installed to hdd, even if it were to boot via live usb.

To close my story: I had oodles of issues on my project. In addition to the nvidia video, this old machine doesn’t support SSE2, and the RAM is only 256 MB. I knew it wouldn’t be good for general usage, but I wanted to just see what I could do with it. I discovered that without SSE2 support, I had to remove flash to use the Palemoon non-sse2 browser (otherwise, it crashes). And it nearly chokes when running palemoon. (Links2 runs nicely, though.) So be prepared for sub-par performance with a 20-year-old computer…. Perhaps your music will work, though. You never know until you try…

Hope this helps.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by christophe.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by christophe.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member ex_Koo]

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I have a T430 (13 years old+) lenovo running 4.20.12-antix.1-amd64-smp , 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i5-3320M , Intel Centrino Advanced – N6205 , Intel HD Graphics , 8gb G-Skill 1866 dual memory. Which is fully updated.

I can not fault it at all, runs like a dream. I also update the Intel HD Graphics using sgfxi with no screen tearing on 1600×900.
This is with the latest bios 2.79 27 Feb 2019.

Also have a USB live antiX same as above the dream continues.

One day maybe I should use a modded bios one day maybe not.

(I no intension of updating this machine to version five bios)

anticapitalista Thanks for your awesome kernel work.

Hope this helps in some way..

[Anonymous]

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Hmmm … did I miss something? Masochist?

What’s exactly the point of fiddling with “the newest Kernel” on a box that should have been trown away 10 years ago?

By the way, the 4.4 Kernel is getting support longer than the 4.19 and, RHEL is still using 3.10 and I didn’t really find any issues with it.

Concerned about ‘security’? If you still use P-III, then you have a bigger problem then the Kernel versions.

Today even a Smartphone comes with 8+ cores and 8+ GB RAM!

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

About Lenovo T430, it’s not the latest model, but 13+ years old, it’ll be in some 4 ~ 5 years. 😉

https://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T420-Notebook.51125.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T430-Notebook.78981.0.html

[Member cyrilus31]

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‘than’ the Kernel versions 😉

Not only that but newer kernel may be a real plague for old hardware. Has anybody heard of a database kernel<>hardware just to know when it’s time to stop updating the kernel (I’m not sure but I would have the tendancy to trust noClue about old piece of junk having bigger problems than kernel versions).

[Member seaken64]

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Ok, ok, I’m not suggesting that everyone should switch over to using an old P-III as their daily driver! And you’re going to hurt it’s feelings if you keep calling it a piece of junk! Ha!

I’m an old timer and once upon a time this P-III was my main system and was a solid computer. I don’t use it the way I once did anymore because that would be ridiculous. But it was never a piece of junk. I’ve had some modern tablets and laptops that were way worse to use.

This is a personal historical project that I maintain. I am constantly amazed that this old system still works. If it was all I had I could survive with it even now, in 2019. But it would be slow and take a lot of patience. But I can watch YouTube, listen to music, look up information, and do office work like contracts and databases and record keeping. That’s not bad. But it’s also not enough for today’s generation. I get it. But I want to see how long I can keep this thing alive. It’s an experiment. It’s not the end of the world for me if the linux kernel moves on and I can no longer get it to work. But as long as I can do so I’m going to keep linux on it, by way of antiX and Debian.

Seaken64

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by seaken64.

[Member cyrilus31]

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You’re right I was a bit harsh 😉
I love tinkering with my old dell and it seems it will never die.

[Member seaken64]

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There is something about these old computers. They just seem built better. The particular P-III I am talking about is a business computer, a Compaq Deskpro-EN. It is tough. But it was never meant for games or the high-speed internet, etc. I also still have some old IBM ThinkCentre systems running as backup servers. I’ve not had great results with the Dell’s personally. But I do have a couple P-III desktops that ran ME or W2K. One is still running ME, the other is running antiX and Puppy. All experimental and historical. I have a couple old Dell P-4 laptops and they are not great for me. One has a very bad habit of not showing the screen on boot. I has a touchy video system. Works great in XP but in Linux it is flakey. The other one I am working on right now to keep alive as my music player. The hard disk is flakey so I am using a LiveUSB, and the screen bezel has broken from the hinges.

Anyway, antiX has been great for me since I have so many old computers. It’s a great hobby. I hope to learn more about the kernel and kernel changes as I move along. It’s been an area that I have not spent much time in so far. But if the new 5.0 kernel is going to make it next to impossible to use on these old systems I’m going to have to learn how to work around that.

Seaken64

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