kernel 4.9 has reached EOL (end of life)

[Member calciumsodium]

I saw from kernel.org that the 4.9 kernel has reached EOL (end of life). The last kernel of this series is 4.9.337. This has been my favorite kernel because so many of my old computers run very well with the 4.9 kernel.

Thanks to the antiX dev team for manually creating antiX kernels for users.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Yeah, I’m going to miss it too.

While I have newer systems that can run the latest stuff I also have a couple of good, classic old systems that were outstanding for their time and they work really well with the old 4 series kernels and frankly 4.9 is the best of them.

A couple of months ago I was working with my Dell Inspiron laptop, which works with modern kernels and stuff from 4.9, 4.19, and 5 series kernels. Out of all of them the 4.9 kernel works best of all, at least for the workload that I typically have.

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Brian Masinick

[Member greyowl]

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Is it necessary to switch to another kernel or is it safe to continue using 4.9?
If I need to switch, what kernel would be best to switch to?
I am running Dell Latitude D610 and D620 laptops.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by greyowl.

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Eventually there will be a need for more security updates. Functionally it’ll be fine, but avoid any financial transactions when using this kernel in the future; if you can do such things in a different way and use this system for casual browsing you should be fine; just be cautious.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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The risk is potential intrusion of your personal information. The less you expose any personal information the better, so clear all cache and remove any login details or anything with name, address, or anything else that identifies you; then your worries are much less.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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The 4.19 kernel has a longer lifespan (until December 2024).

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by Brian Masinick.

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Brian Masinick

[Member greyowl]

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@Brian
Thank you for the information.
I just went ahead and installed 4.19-0-256 kernel on the D620. It booted up fine. It runs my printer and scanner fine. No apparent difficulties.
So, this is good until Dec 2024 with forthcoming security updates. Right.
Another two year reprieve!

If I run into any problems with the 4.19 kernel, I will report back.

Now, to install 4.19 on the D610.

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

[Member andfree]

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Hi. I’ve written here about an old, 32-bit, Pentium 4 laptop I use. When the 4.4 kernel reached EOL, the 4.9 one appeared to be the only functional choice. As the 4.9 kernel was approaching EOL, I tried the 4.19 one, but there was some kind of incompatibility with graphics driver or something. Then, I tried the 5.10 kernel and, till now, it works fine for me. And it seems to be supported till Dec 2026.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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andfree wrote:

Hi. I’ve written here about an old, 32-bit, Pentium 4 laptop I use. When the 4.4 kernel reached EOL, the 4.9 one appeared to be the only functional choice. As the 4.9 kernel was approaching EOL, I tried the 4.19 one, but there was some kind of incompatibility with graphics driver or something. Then, I tried the 5.10 kernel and, till now, it works fine for me. And it seems to be supported till Dec 2026.

That’s right; the 5.10 series kernel IS supported until 2026. Unfortunately for me, on the two most frequently used systems I have, the entire V5.10 series, regardless of which update, has never worked well for me, which is VERY unusual, because I have been using Linux systems going back to the Version 1 kernel, and I even had one or two instances that pre-dated Version 1! When I had some issues with a few 5 series kernels within either Debian or antiX, I moved over to Liquorix exclusively for a while and that helped on my Dell Inspiron 5558 laptop, but when I got my HP-14, a later kernel, in the 5.16 to 5.18 range was the first kernel that would support my wireless network, and I discovered that all the previously remaining sources of Ethernet connections in my community were GONE, so that left me with figuring out how to get systems that worked out of the box with WiFi, and I found a few. Once I got them working, I figured out how to get the remaining systems also working.

Just to check back into the situation, earlier today I went back to the Dell Inspiron 5558; it handles V6 kernels well, so that’s usually what I use, but I also kept a few V5 kernels – 5.18 definitely works just fine, and I was able to get 5.10.153 working SOME of the time, so I tried again and it was hanging on populating /dev, which is precisely one of the issues I’d had – for the first time – with the earlier 5.10 kernels. From what I recall, the original ones ALWAYS gave problems, but a few of the somewhat newer ones, like 142 and 153, would at least SOMETIMES work, but they were inconsistent. Hopefully the problems I found are not very common – and I repeat, out of all the kernels over all the years – except perhaps one or two test kernels, all regular kernel releases always worked, but for reasons I’ve never entirely solved, that one series was a problem, and that’s the only series that has ever been a problem (for me).

So I sincerely HOPE that those problems are unique to systems similar to that one Dell model series.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Another thing to note: at least one good thing about both antiX in particular and Linux distributions in general is that there is almost always more than one alternative to a problem, whether it’s a kernel issue, an application issue or something else, because Linux offers choices. Beyond that, we even have the freedom of choice between software freedoms in various forms and commercial software, with different features and paid support. I know the vast majority of people here have either a general dislike, and in a few cases, an intense dislike for anything commercial, but particularly against institutions like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. The mere mention of those names has evoked strong words more than once, so all I say is that each of us is fortunate to have a choice whether to touch any of that stuff or to avoid it no matter what – and some of us do just that.

At the moment I’m running Endeavour OS. This software is based on Arch Linux and it’s very good. It has a few features that make it a breeze to install and use, and it’s pretty close to the cutting edge, yet it tends to have very few problems, and when a problem does arise, it also tends to get quickly fixed. Most of the systems supported on this one are newer and faster than what we use, and yet it’s also very high quality. The kernels available range from 5.15 to the newest 6.1.8 kernel.

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Brian Masinick

[Member entropyagent]

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My current setup on an HP NC6000, which is my “portable”:

$ inxi
CPU: single core Intel Pentium M speed/min/max: 800/600/1600 MHz
Kernel: 4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp i686 Up: 2h 8m Mem: 180.8/1507.5 MiB (12.0%)
Storage: 74.53 GiB (7.8% used) Procs: 161 Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.25

$ ls -lrt /boot/*vml* /boot/*init*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5022464 Aug  8  2021 /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 35207598 Dec  4 14:03 /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp

$ inxi -r
Repos:
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list
    1: deb https://mirror.eu.oneandone.net/linux/distributions/mx/packages/antix/bullseye/ bullseye main nosystemd nonfree
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bullseye-backports.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://ftp.gr.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/ bullseye-security main contrib non-free
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list

Is this the same kernel as mentioned in the OP “The last kernel of this series is 4.9.337” ? Or is it newer or older? How can I tell?

If I look in the antiX “Package Installer” I see no ‘greyed out’ items – Does that mean my current kernel is not known to this app?
I see a (4.9.0-326-486) kernel listed – is this the last of the 4.9 series available to antiX? Is it worth experimenting with this, or should I abandon 4.9 (in the light of the OP) and start trying out 4.19, then 5.10 if 4.19 does not work?

I get the impression this means my system is not taking advantage of more recent security fixes? Is there a recommended upgrade path?

My ‘maintenance’ basically involves entering ‘sudo apt update;sudo apt full-upgrade’ every now and then. I am guessing this is not quite enough. Is there a single place I can scan for exciting news and recommendations about keeping my Pentium M “not too far behind”?

Of course, for First Prize : Is there a chance of getting onto an “auto-upgrade” kernel series, so I would actually not have to face the gruelling task of scanning the occasional Internet page? I have heard the Internet is a dangerous place.

Thanks for keeping this slightly wobbly old machine usable.

[Member sybok]

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You may run the following command:
dpkg -l | grep 'linux-image-4.9.*antix'
List all packages (‘dpkg -l’), send the output to further processing (‘|’), grep lines containing ‘linux-image-4.9’ followed by ‘antix’.
This should output several lines.
If one of them starts with ‘ii’, it means this package is installed.
If there is a line with higher number, it means that you may update to a newer kernel in the 4.9 series.

E.g. the below would mean I have 4.9.264 installed but 4.9.276 (renumbered to 4.9.0-276 due to a uint8 counter overflow) is available

rc  linux-image-4.9.0-276-antix.1-amd64-smp    4.9.0-276-antix.1-amd64-smp-1          amd64        Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-276-antix.1-amd64-smp
ii  linux-image-4.9.264-antix.1-amd64-smp      4.9.264-antix.1-amd64-smp-1            amd64        Linux kernel, version 4.9.264-antix.1-amd64-smp

[Member entropyagent]

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Thanks for the feedback. Does dpkg query the online repositories, or just the local cache? I was unable to glean this from a hasty scan of the man pages.

I have always thought of it as a way to install a local package which was downloaded by other means. It does seem to have other abilities.

My dpkg returns only 1 line.

$ dpkg -l | grep 'linux-image-4.9'
ii  linux-image-4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp   4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp-1                i386         Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp

$ sudo apt search linux-image-4.9
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
linux-image-4.9.0-264-antix.1-486-smp/bullseye 4.9.0-264-antix.1-486-smp-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-264-antix.1-486-smp

linux-image-4.9.0-264-antix.1-686-smp-pae/bullseye 4.9.0-264-antix.1-686-smp-pae-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-264-antix.1-686-smp-pae

linux-image-4.9.0-276-antix.1-486-smp/bullseye 4.9.0-276-antix.1-486-smp-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-276-antix.1-486-smp

linux-image-4.9.0-276-antix.1-686-smp-pae/bullseye 4.9.0-276-antix.1-686-smp-pae-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-276-antix.1-686-smp-pae

linux-image-4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp/bullseye,now 4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp-1 i386 [installed]
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-279-antix.1-486-smp

linux-image-4.9.0-279-antix.1-686-smp-pae/bullseye 4.9.0-279-antix.1-686-smp-pae-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-279-antix.1-686-smp-pae

linux-image-4.9.0-294-antix.1-486-smp/bullseye 4.9.0-294-antix.1-486-smp-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-294-antix.1-486-smp

linux-image-4.9.0-294-antix.1-686-smp-pae/bullseye 4.9.0-294-antix.1-686-smp-pae-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-294-antix.1-686-smp-pae

linux-image-4.9.0-326-antix.1-486-smp/bullseye 4.9.0-326-antix.1-486-smp-2 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-326-antix.1-486-smp

linux-image-4.9.0-326-antix.1-686-smp-pae/bullseye 4.9.0-326-antix.1-686-smp-pae-1 i386
  Linux kernel, version 4.9.0-326-antix.1-686-smp-pae

Is there a magical flag which tells a kernel or kernel series to become “auto-updating”? It seems there are bigger numbers available, but my “apt full-upgrade” ignores them.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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antiX does not automatically upgrade the kernel.
It has to be done manually.

You have an old 4.9 kernel.
Use Package Installer to update to the latest kernel of the series you want whether that is 4.9, 4.19 or 5.10 (assuming everything is already fully upgraded). The working kernel you have will not be removed. You can remove it later once you are satisfied a newer kernel is working well.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member sybok]

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My guess is that ‘dpkg’ query is sent to local database. You can disconnect from internet temporarily and try to run the command.
I use for two purposes: install a local DEB package (more often) or query the database.

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