Kernel choice

[greyowlMember]

I previously had antiX 19 on my Dell Latitude D-620 laptop and have always used the 4.9 kernel.

I recent installed antiX 21 on my it and began using the 5.10 kernel. I also tried the 4.9 kernel as well.
Both kernels seem to work equally well.

So, I am trying to decide which kernel to use, but I don’t know any guidelines for making such a choice.

I would appreciate some feedback on how others make this choice and their rationale.

Thanks

[seaken64Member]

Hi @greyowl, I’m not an expert in this area. I can only share what I have done. On my computers that are really old I use the 4.9 kernel (P-III class) but on some of my old P4’s I have stayed with the 5.10 kernel and I have not seen any problems so far. Most of my P4’s are not as starved for RAM as the P-III’s so I usually don’t try as hard to lower the RAM used. But I do think the 4.9 kernel uses less RAM in general vs the 5.10 kernel. So, If you need that little extra memory savings I would go with the 4.9 kernel.

On computers that exhibit some “issue” I usually change the kernel. Right now I have a Core2Duo that is struggling to come out of the screen blanking mode with the 5.10 kernel, so I will try the earlier kernels to see if it helps.

Seaken64

[greyowlMember]

@seaken64
Thank you for your thoughts on this.
I didn’t realize that 5.10 kernel used more RAM than the 4.9 kernel. This is important to know because I like to conserve the RAM when possible.
Thanks again.

[blur13Member]

As Greg Kroah-Hartman puts it, “the best kernel you can use is one that someone else supports“

If both kernels work equally well, then I tend to use the older one. My thinking is that each new kernel revision adds more code and hardware support, ie becomes bloated. If you have recent hardware you probably need the latest kernel. Otherwise you can stick to the old one. But I’m definitely not an expert on the subject.

[Brian MasinickModerator]

@blur13: For the most part, your idea is sound, PROVIDED that the older kernels continue to get security checks and changes.

If, for example, our 4.4 kernels continue to be updated (last time I checked, they were), then they are good kernels to use with older hardware.

On the other hand, for the latest systems, unless hardware support is added for newer systems, the newest technology is not available. That’s one reason why we have 3-4 kernels available in our own repo and other Debian-based kernels may also be worth checking out for certain people and system configurations.

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Brian Masinick
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[greyowlMember]

@blur13: Thank you for the helpful explanation and perspective. It is becoming clearer for me.

[rokytnjiForum Admin]

4.9 kernel should be smaller than 5.10.

I run a 4.9 64bit kernel on my chromebook which is newer than your d620. But I have antiX 19 64 bit full iso on the chromebook.

No problems with hardware on it and runs zippy. Only had to dial in the touchpad a little on the chromebook.

If 5.10 runs OK. I would not overthink it though. I’d just leave 4.9 installed as a backup for no boot when I choose 5.10 in grub menu and it fails to boot for what ever reason. .

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[greyowlMember]

@rokytnji
Good point to have a backup kernel on the machine, in case one of the kernel won’t boot.

[sybokMember]

Hi,

I also keep few different versions of kernels on my antiX testing and/or stable (due to occasional “glitches” because of running testing and a HW related issue on the stable one).

@Brian Masinick:
4.4 is to become EOL very soon, see:
http://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html
Of course, Debian may treat the LTS kernels slightly differently not supporting all of them and it needs to be verified there as well, e.g.
http://packages.debian.org/stable/kernel/

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