Reasons to Upgrade

[Member oldfisherman]

A few months back I got a couple of 17 year old Dell laptops (32bit, 60G hard drive, 4G memory). I am running 4.9.235-antix.1-486-smp on them and they do all I need. I have been slowly learning AntiX and tweaked a few things and so far not managed to completely wipe out and have to start over. I do not do any thing on them that if it was compromised would do me any harm.

Is there any reason to upgrade from 19 to 21 or 22?

[Moderator BobC]

Helpful

Up

1

::

If they are old, and not already running antiX 21, you should check to make sure the video will work.

I’d suggest making a flashdrive to boot from, and try it out. You might verify that the other programs you use work, too, as long as you are doing that.

[Member oldfisherman]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Thanks for the idea. Will try that just to see what works and if anything doesn’t.

[Member DaveW]

Helpful

Up

1

::

The counsel from BobC is good. I moved from antiX-17 to 21 on my Asus eeepc-900. Everything works nicely, except the screen resolution is limited to 800×600 max. (on antix-17 it was 1024×600). So far, I have not found a way to get beyond that limit. I’ve tried quite a few trails, all unproductive thus far. I installed to SSD from a live USB, and hoped that the install process would identify display capabilities (as was my experience with previous versions), but not so. I have a backup of the antix-17 system and may revert to that, but I would prefer to keep a current kernel. I hope it works better for you.

[Member oldfisherman]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I gave it a try from a USB I just made. No screen problems, sound card works great. The only hitch so far is the wifi is not recognized on conman. Had that trouble with Antix19 and spent several hrs getting it right. A good rainy day project and I think I remember how I fixed it. Have to bring it down to the office where I can hook up the etho cable from the router. I have two of the same old Dell latitude 610s so when the snow comes and I have more time I will upgrade before I am stuck with an orphan system. No hurry but it is a good learning experience.

Thanks for the heads up on the possible display problem.

[Moderator BobC]

Helpful

Up

1

::

Try the solution anticapitalista posted for Broadcom B43 WiFi. It’s in a sticky post. If you check your inxi, I think you will find that style of adapter.

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/fix-broadcom-b43-problems/

[Member blur13]

Helpful

Up

1

::

Upgrade the kernel to 4.9.0-326.

Other than that I think you answered your own question: “I am running 4.9.235-antix.1-486-smp on them and they do all I need”

Then there is no reason to upgrade. Antix 19 is still supported so you’ll get security updates (until June 30th, 2024, I think). And an advantage with antiX over Debian is that you will still get updates to core programs like icewm. For quite a few programs the version in antiX 19 and 21 is the same. For example, Libre Office and MPV.

I’m in the same situation with two systems running 19 and they just work, so I’ve decided to skip upgrading until there is an actual reason to do so, ie I really need a later version of some program. And even then, it might be possible to compile from source. Debian 12 will be released in less than a year and hopefully there will be an antiX 23 to install then. Might save yourself some trouble and wait for that release.

[Member PPC]

Helpful

Up

1

::

My 2 main desktop computers still have antiX 19, only on my (32bits, extremely old) laptop and netbook (from the term alone you can guess how old it is) I run antiX 21 updated (now equivalent to antiX 22).
There are no obvious reason to update (specially since your device does everything you need it to do), if your system is still getting security updates and the newest versions of the software you use (it’s important to have up to date browsers, and basically any program that connects to the internet).
On 32 bits devices there’s one plus to updating- since antiX 21/22 is based in the latest Debian version, there is some software that is only available under that newest version- and in 32bits I’m not sure that you can install flatpaks and there are not many appimages available- so you are stuck with the versions of the apps that are available in antiX 19’s repo…
There are some new features, that can make life simpler for users, that are available in the latest versions (like BobC’s great new GUI for selecting the default apps)…

P.

[Member sybok]

Helpful

Up

1

::

BTW, kernel 4.9 has EOL Jan 2023 (see https://kernel.org/category/releases.html), you may wish to install and test 4.19.

[Member oldfisherman]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Thanks for the idea of updating the kernel Since I am 83 the projected EOL isn’t quite as important as it may be for others.

[Member oldfisherman]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Thanks to you and the others who suggested “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” idea. I will still play around with it on the spare computer as a learning experience. Everything seems to run OK with 21 except Firefox is slow as molasses when using wifi. Runs OK on etho direct off the router so it seems to be a B43 problem. I will work on it later as it is way to improve my ability to understand Linux and a challenge. To those that suggested a possible display problem Antix 21 still gives 1400 x 1024 on a Dell Latitude 610 right out of the box with no tweaking.

[Author]

Posts