Re: An old box running Debian 8

[David Wright]

On Wed 18 Nov 2020 at 13:03:13 (-0500), Michael Stone wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 12:18:33PM -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
> > David Wright composed on 2020-11-18 09:46 (UTC-0600):
> > 
> > > IIRC the Release Notes usually
> > > recommend upgrading the kernel (its minor version upgrade) early
> > > in the distribution upgrade process.
> > I don't recall ever seeing that. Curious.
> > 
> > Even though all my own installations are in multiboot, for Fedora, Mageia 
> > and
> > openSUSE, I prevent all automatic kernel upgrades, regardless whether major 
> > or
> > minor, dist-upgrade or otherwise. I can't recall any instance of a 
> > dist-upgrade
> > failing in any fashion because a newer kernel hadn't been installed.
> 
> There are definitely cases which will fail, but it's been a long time
> since that happened in debian--at least if you follow the guideline to
> never skip releases when upgrading.

A case in point was lenny → squeeze: squeeze's udev was incompatible
with lenny's kernel (§4.4.5 squeeze's Release Notes).

More generally, the end of §4.6.1 in several generations of
Release Notes, it appears.

Cheers,
David.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Michael Stone]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 12:18:33PM -0500, Felix Miata wrote:

David Wright composed on 2020-11-18 09:46 (UTC-0600):


IIRC the Release Notes usually
recommend upgrading the kernel (its minor version upgrade) early
in the distribution upgrade process.

I don't recall ever seeing that. Curious.

Even though all my own installations are in multiboot, for Fedora, Mageia and
openSUSE, I prevent all automatic kernel upgrades, regardless whether major or
minor, dist-upgrade or otherwise. I can't recall any instance of a dist-upgrade
failing in any fashion because a newer kernel hadn't been installed.


There are definitely cases which will fail, but it's been a long time 
since that happened in debian--at least if you follow the guideline to 
never skip releases when upgrading.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Felix Miata]

David Wright composed on 2020-11-18 09:46 (UTC-0600):

> IIRC the Release Notes usually
> recommend upgrading the kernel (its minor version upgrade) early
> in the distribution upgrade process.
I don't recall ever seeing that. Curious.

Even though all my own installations are in multiboot, for Fedora, Mageia and
openSUSE, I prevent all automatic kernel upgrades, regardless whether major or
minor, dist-upgrade or otherwise. I can't recall any instance of a dist-upgrade
failing in any fashion because a newer kernel hadn't been installed.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Mi, 18 nov 20, 09:46:04, David Wright wrote:
> On Tue 17 Nov 2020 at 17:43:43 (+0200), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> 
> > Depending on when in the release cycle the dist-upgrade is done the 
> > newer kernel image may not even be available yet
> 
> All the kernels listed above are available now. The OP is playing
> catch-up. This is not a strategy being advertised for the future.

What I wrote above is actually bogus, except for upgrades from stable to 
testing while I was thinking of oldstable to stable.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: An old box running Debian 8

[David Wright]

On Tue 17 Nov 2020 at 17:43:43 (+0200), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Ma, 17 nov 20, 09:24:05, David Wright wrote:
> > On Sun 15 Nov 2020 at 10:41:55 (+0200), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > > On Sb, 14 nov 20, 16:36:03, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> > > > On 11/13/20 9:29 PM, David Wright wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > I would have thought that Debian has made kernel testing just about as
> > > > > easy as they can since:
> > > > > jessie  installs with 3.16 but 4.9  is also available,
> > > > > stretch installs with 4.9  but 4.19 is also available,
> > > > > buster  installs with 4.19
> > > > > so there's full overlap. (I've not looked at backports.)
> > > > 
> > > > That's actually what I also thought about.
> > > > 
> > > > Btw, when you say 'installs', do you mean a fresh installation only, or 
> > > > it
> > > > includes a 'forced' kernel update during a distribution upgrade? My old 
> > > > box
> > > > was installed for the first time in squeeze, then upgraded to wheezy, 
> > > > then
> > > > to jessie.
> > 
> > By "installs with", I meant the former, ie the version supplied with
> > the debian-installer. Once you're happy with that version, it's
> > possible to install the newer version, leaving the old one as a
> > fallback (assuming the usual things like enough room in /boot, etc).
> > 
> > > It depends on whether you have the corresponding linux-image- 
> > > package installed or not.
> > 
> > I'm not sure what difference this would make. Looking at all
> > the linux-image-X86* packages in stretch, they all depend on
> > linux-image-4.9-* packages.
> 
> That was meant for the dist-upgrade case. Without the corresponding 
> linux-image- meta-package the kernel will be left as is and 
> the user has to manually install a newer kernel from the next 
> distribution.

Oh, I see what you're pointing out: that the minor¹ upgrades won't
take place automatically unless linux-image- meta-package
is installed. Sure. I wasn't concerning myself with that, but only
with trying to avoid an irreversible upgrade followed by inability
to boot.

To spell out what I have been suggesting, the idea is to test the
OP's jessie distribution with the newer kernel, 4.9. If there are
problems, they can fall back to 3.16. Once any problems are sorted,
and it's running 4.9 smoothly, they can upgrade to stretch.

Because the major number (AIUI, the kernel's ABI) doesn't change in
moving to stretch, this should be relatively trivial as far as the
kernel is concerned. In fact, IIRC the Release Notes usually
recommend upgrading the kernel (its minor version upgrade) early
in the distribution upgrade process. These two paragraphs can then
be repeated for stretch and buster.

I don't recall seeing a safer process posted for upgrading a machine
running a single system. I would post detailed logs of my doing it
for myself, but for the fact that I have had the habit (for two
decades) of configuring two root filesystem partitions on my systems,
and alternating between them with fresh installations, ie:
part_A: squeeze → overwritten by → jessie → overwritten by → buster
part_B: lenny → overwritten by → wheezy → overwritten by → stretch
The two systems share their /home and swap. With this structure in
place, I'm a lot more gung-ho about distribution upgrades.

> Depending on when in the release cycle the dist-upgrade is done the 
> newer kernel image may not even be available yet

All the kernels listed above are available now. The OP is playing
catch-up. This is not a strategy being advertised for the future.

> The linux-image- also depends on the default kernel for the 
> distribution, e.g. in case of stretch it depends on a
> 4.9 linux image, for a 4.19 image one has to install 
> linux-image-4.19- (or the linux image package itself).

Yes. IIRC, the newer one would typically be included as what was
termed a "technology preview". What you're describing here is the
"intra-distribution", major upgrade of the kernel, and its safety
is ensured because the older, working kernel is left installed
and still available.

None of this is rocket science; it's just trying to move one
step at a time with maximum ability to either hold the new
configuration or retreat (like a rock-climber's "three points
of contact" rule).

¹ ie in x.y.z-ppp numbering, y would be major, z would be minor.

Cheers,
David.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Ma, 17 nov 20, 09:24:05, David Wright wrote:
> On Sun 15 Nov 2020 at 10:41:55 (+0200), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > On Sb, 14 nov 20, 16:36:03, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> > > On 11/13/20 9:29 PM, David Wright wrote:
> > > 
> > > > I would have thought that Debian has made kernel testing just about as
> > > > easy as they can since:
> > > > jessie  installs with 3.16 but 4.9  is also available,
> > > > stretch installs with 4.9  but 4.19 is also available,
> > > > buster  installs with 4.19
> > > > so there's full overlap. (I've not looked at backports.)
> > > 
> > > That's actually what I also thought about.
> > > 
> > > Btw, when you say 'installs', do you mean a fresh installation only, or it
> > > includes a 'forced' kernel update during a distribution upgrade? My old 
> > > box
> > > was installed for the first time in squeeze, then upgraded to wheezy, then
> > > to jessie.
> 
> By "installs with", I meant the former, ie the version supplied with
> the debian-installer. Once you're happy with that version, it's
> possible to install the newer version, leaving the old one as a
> fallback (assuming the usual things like enough room in /boot, etc).
> 
> > It depends on whether you have the corresponding linux-image- 
> > package installed or not.
> 
> I'm not sure what difference this would make. Looking at all
> the linux-image-X86* packages in stretch, they all depend on
> linux-image-4.9-* packages.

That was meant for the dist-upgrade case. Without the corresponding 
linux-image- meta-package the kernel will be left as is and 
the user has to manually install a newer kernel from the next 
distribution.

Depending on when in the release cycle the dist-upgrade is done the 
newer kernel image may not even be available yet

The linux-image- also depends on the default kernel for the 
distribution, e.g. in case of stretch it depends on a
4.9 linux image, for a 4.19 image one has to install 
linux-image-4.19- (or the linux image package itself).

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: An old box running Debian 8

[David Wright]

On Sun 15 Nov 2020 at 10:41:55 (+0200), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Sb, 14 nov 20, 16:36:03, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> > On 11/13/20 9:29 PM, David Wright wrote:
> > 
> > > I would have thought that Debian has made kernel testing just about as
> > > easy as they can since:
> > > jessie  installs with 3.16 but 4.9  is also available,
> > > stretch installs with 4.9  but 4.19 is also available,
> > > buster  installs with 4.19
> > > so there's full overlap. (I've not looked at backports.)
> > 
> > That's actually what I also thought about.
> > 
> > Btw, when you say 'installs', do you mean a fresh installation only, or it
> > includes a 'forced' kernel update during a distribution upgrade? My old box
> > was installed for the first time in squeeze, then upgraded to wheezy, then
> > to jessie.

By "installs with", I meant the former, ie the version supplied with
the debian-installer. Once you're happy with that version, it's
possible to install the newer version, leaving the old one as a
fallback (assuming the usual things like enough room in /boot, etc).

> It depends on whether you have the corresponding linux-image- 
> package installed or not.

I'm not sure what difference this would make. Looking at all
the linux-image-X86* packages in stretch, they all depend on
linux-image-4.9-* packages.

One minor point: if linux-image-586/linux-image-3.16.0-10-586
is your current kernel version, linux-image-4.9-686 is the
next kernel to try. (For some reason, there was never a non-PAE
version of 3.16.0-*-686 packaged.)

So AFAICT, to upgrade to my "also available" kernels above, you
have to specifically install them. I hesitate to use the term
"force" because that has different connotations for apt/dpkg.

And I wouldn't combine it with a regular distribution upgrade.
In fact, that's the whole point of my posting: to do each kernel
change "long" after a distribution upgrade and "long" before the
next one. ("Long" might be a single day of regression testing the
system to make sure you're happy that everything still works
after the change.)

So the sequence would be:

jessie with 3.16 running ok
  new kernel installation
jessie with 4.9 running ok
  distribution upgrade
stretch with 4.9 running ok
  new kernel installation
stretch with 4.19 running ok
  distribution upgrade
buster with 4.19 running ok

Cheers,
David.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Sb, 14 nov 20, 16:36:03, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> On 11/13/20 9:29 PM, David Wright wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I would have thought that Debian has made kernel testing just about as
> > easy as they can since:
> > jessie  installs with 3.16 but 4.9  is also available,
> > stretch installs with 4.9  but 4.19 is also available,
> > buster  installs with 4.19
> > so there's full overlap. (I've not looked at backports.)
> > 
> 
> That's actually what I also thought about.
> 
> Btw, when you say 'installs', do you mean a fresh installation only, or it
> includes a 'forced' kernel update during a distribution upgrade? My old box
> was installed for the first time in squeeze, then upgraded to wheezy, then
> to jessie.

It depends on whether you have the corresponding linux-image- 
package installed or not.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: An old box running Debian 8

[John Hasler]

Charles Curley writes:
> True. But it does require emacs. Which in the context of the OP's
> requirement, stands for "Eighty Megs And Constantly Swapping" :-)

It was "eight Megs and constantly swapping": eight Megs was huge on a
Vax.

In the 90s I ran text-mode Emacs on a 386 box with 16M with no problems.
By current standards text-mode Emacs is *tiny*.  Even GUI Emacs has a
negligible memory footprint compared to any modern browser.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Charles Curley]

On Sat, 14 Nov 2020 14:41:40 -0600
John Hasler  wrote:

> Charles Curley writes:
> >And has the further virtue of not requiring a GUI, only ncurses.  
> 
> Gnus doesn't even require ncurses.

True. But it does require emacs. Which in the context of the OP's
requirement, stands for "Eighty Megs And Constantly Swapping" :-)

Jokes aside, GNUS would serve the OP's requirements admirably.

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[John Hasler]

Charles Curley writes:
>And has the further virtue of not requiring a GUI, only ncurses.

Gnus doesn't even require ncurses.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Felix Miata]

Miroslav Skoric composed on 2020-11-14 17:02 (UTC+0100):

> I understood from this thread that after distro upgrade 
> from 8 to 9 shall work in CLI, and then look for a simple window manager 
> & light mail processor.

I can't imagine why it wouldn't work. Last night I performed a fresh 
installation
on a relic similar to what yours could be with a dirt cheap or free CPU upgrade 
to
a Pentium II or III and bringing RAM up to 384M or even 768M or 1024M, depending
on what the board supports. Many old P2 boards came with 3 RAM slots supporting 
up
to 768M. That's what the board I used constitutes, but with BIOS upgrade also
fully supports Pentium IIIs. Newer Celeron boards with Socket 370 instead of 
slot I
have seen only have two RAM slots but support at least 1024M RAM.

This was a NET installation initialized by Grub after downloading only the
installation kernel and initrd before starting. Also, in advance, I partitioned
and formatted, and provided an ample swap partition for the installer to use.
Thus I was able to use the GUI installer. As all my PCs are, it's multiboot,
this one with DOS, Windows XP and two old SUSE releases running 2.x kernels.

Note that Trinity Desktop Environment is a full DE, not mere window manager.
Its version 14.0.9 was released just last week. It's developed on and primarily
intended for Debian-based distros.

Also note below the dismal disk I/O. That's because the HD is running on a 50 
pin
SCSI-2 HD, which when new, was a lot faster than the IDE disks of its early '90s
era.

# inxi -Cy
CPU:
  Info: Single Core model: Pentium III (Coppermine) bits: 32 type: MCP
  L2 cache: 256 KiB
  Speed: 702 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 702
# inxi -GIMSmay
System:
  Host: s2846 Kernel: 5.9.1-2-default i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1
  Desktop: Trinity R14.0.9 tk: Qt 3.5.0 info: kicker wm: Twin 3.0 dm: TDM
  Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 2020
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Tyan model: Intel 440BX/GX v: Rev. 4 serial: 
  BIOS: American Megatrends v: 063101 date: 07/15/99
Memory:
  RAM: total: 483.6 MiB used: 138.2 MiB (28.6%)
  Array-1: capacity: 768 MiB slots: 0 EC: N/A max module size: 256 MiB
  Device-1: N/A size: 256 MiB info: double-bank speed: type: N/A
  bus width: N/A total: N/A manufacturer: N/A part-no: N/A serial: N/A
  Device-2: N/A size: N/A info: not installed speed: type: N/A bus width: N/A
  total: N/A manufacturer: N/A part-no: N/A serial: N/A
  Device-3: N/A size: 256 MiB info: double-bank speed: type: N/A
  bus width: N/A total: N/A manufacturer: N/A part-no: N/A serial: N/A
Graphics:
  Device-1: Matrox Systems MGA G400/G450 driver: matrox_w1 v: kernel
  bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 102b:0525
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: matrox_w1 note: display driver n/a
  FAILED: mga unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa display ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1280x1024 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 339x271mm (13.3x10.7")
  s-diag: 434mm (17.1")
  Monitor-1: default res: 1280x1024 hz: 77
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.0 128 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.2.1
  compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes
Info:...Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 running in: konsole inxi: 3.1.09
# free
  totalusedfree  shared  buff/cache   available
Mem: 495392  134324   818521404  279216  346244
Swap:   4875652 264 4875388
# df /
Filesystem 1K-blocksUsed Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb76460497 1668643   4460436  28% /
# hdparm -t /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  56 MB in  3.01 seconds =  18.61 MB/sec

I have not tried any more with the TDE GUI on this installation than
customizing settings and using Konsole to collect this data, but they were
plenty brisk, in spite of the poor Matrox graphics performance. IMO TDE
qualifies as a lightweight well suited to antiques. After all, it's a fork of
KDE3, which ran well on hardware common when it was forked to TDE a decade
ago, and hasn't been bloated by unnecessary changes in the interim.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Charles Curley]

On Sat, 14 Nov 2020 12:49:05 -0500
Dan Ritter  wrote:

> In my opinion, mutt is the best mail user agent of all. It's
> also one of the most efficient.

And has the further virtue of not requiring a GUI, only ncurses.

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Dan Ritter]

Miroslav Skoric wrote: 
> On 11/12/20 9:53 AM, Michael Lange wrote:
> 
> In any case, I understood from this thread that after distro upgrade from 8
> to 9 shall work in CLI, and then look for a simple window manager & light
> mail processor.


In my opinion, mutt is the best mail user agent of all. It's
also one of the most efficient.

-dsr-

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/13/20 3:52 PM, Andrei POPESCU wrote:



Beware that LTS support for jessie ended in June 2020.

https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/

That system should be upgraded to some release with security support as
soon as possible, especially since it's dealing with e-mail as far as I
understand from your other messages.



Well, ending LTS support for jessie was one of the reasons for 
considering upgrade 8 to 9. However, in any case it is a single-purpose 
machine where most of activity is 'unconnected'. Furthermore, the comp 
is behind the firewall where almost all in & out activities are banned.


Related to e-mail security: That box stores & forwards amateur radio 
traffic only, where the local users access their mailboxes by ham radio 
stations, not by the Internet. The Internet is used just for 
server-to-server batch exchange, where partnering servers are licensed 
and proven.


(And all of that is plain text only. No html, no scripts ... An 
advantage of ham radio vs. Internet  :-)


Misko

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/13/20 9:29 PM, David Wright wrote:



I would have thought that Debian has made kernel testing just about as
easy as they can since:
jessie  installs with 3.16 but 4.9  is also available,
stretch installs with 4.9  but 4.19 is also available,
buster  installs with 4.19
so there's full overlap. (I've not looked at backports.)



That's actually what I also thought about.

Btw, when you say 'installs', do you mean a fresh installation only, or 
it includes a 'forced' kernel update during a distribution upgrade? My 
old box was installed for the first time in squeeze, then upgraded to 
wheezy, then to jessie.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/12/20 9:53 AM, Michael Lange wrote:



A really good option in this field is IceWM. It has everything a typical
user needs out-of-the-box and is extremely lightweight (and themeable).




From my own experience I agree about that.

Still, the tricky part will be to choose other gui programs that are
still usable with the OP's hardware. For example, if they need a gui text
editor, nedit may be light enough for such a machine (that is, if one can
live without proper unicode support) and maybe xfe may still be a usable
gui file manager for them. The display command provides probably a usable
image viewer.
Web browsers will be especially tricky.
If dillo is good enough it will probably behave more or less smoothly.
Using firefox would very likely be not much fun.



In fact, some basic GUI on that old box would be of use for only me as a 
system admin, especially when some newbies knock the office door asking 
to see if there is any nice graphics in Linux. (Remote users who access 
their mailboxes by radio stations do not need me having any GUI at all.)


In any case, I understood from this thread that after distro upgrade 
from 8 to 9 shall work in CLI, and then look for a simple window manager 
& light mail processor.


Thanks to all.

Misko

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Stefan Monnier]

> The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
> gets used or over-used, and the machine locks.

AFAIK this is not a common problem.  There's a known problem in ZFS that
exhibits this behavior, and IIRC there could be similar problems in the
past if you tried to swap over NFS (not sure if that problem was fixed
since; it was many years ago), but I don't know of such problems for the
"normal setup".

> Without even a warning message.  BSD-derived OS's running on the very
> same commodity Intel hardware dont have that problem.  Why does linux?

AFAIK it's usually just a bug, tho sometimes it's one that's not easy to
fix because it's not result of bad code or bad design but of
incompatible designs in two different parts, so fixing it implies
a redesign of at least one of the sides.  I can't remember what was the
underlying issue in the swap-over-NFS case but it was non-trivial to fix
satisfactorily, IIRC (and I seem to remember that the problem was
fundamental enough that it likely affects all possible implementations,
so all a "fix" could hope to do was to reduce the incidence rate and
improve the debug-log to help diagnose the problem).  In the ZFS case
the problem is likely that the ZFS code was not designed with the right
assumptions for use in the Linux kernel.


Stefan

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[David Wright]

On Fri 13 Nov 2020 at 16:52:41 (+0200), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Vi, 13 nov 20, 14:06:52, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> > On 11/13/20 12:12 AM, Linux-Fan wrote:
> > > Miroslav Skoric writes:
> > > > On 11/11/20 7:09 PM, Linux-Fan wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > Pentium II is old indeed. Whenever using old processors, it is
> > > > > important to
> > > > > test if the new kernel will still support them.
> > > > 
> > > > So maybe I shall try some newer kernel only?
> > > 
> > > If you have an easy means to do that: Yes, I would highly recommend doing
> > > that.
> > 
> > I'll consider that kind of test (if possible at all). Need to check what
> > (newer) kernels are available in Debian 8 repository. Cannot remember now
> > what (if any) kernel change occurred when I upgraded 7 to 8.
> 
> Just for testing purposes you could try a jessie-backports kernel 
> downloaded from snapshots or even the kernel from Debian 9 (stretch).
> 
> Using a kernel from a newer release is generally less dangerous that 
> many other packages. Worst case one can just reboot to the previous 
> kernel.
> 
> Beware that LTS support for jessie ended in June 2020.
> 
> https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/
> 
> That system should be upgraded to some release with security support as 
> soon as possible, especially since it's dealing with e-mail as far as I 
> understand from your other messages.

I would have thought that Debian has made kernel testing just about as
easy as they can since:
jessie  installs with 3.16 but 4.9  is also available,
stretch installs with 4.9  but 4.19 is also available,
buster  installs with 4.19
so there's full overlap. (I've not looked at backports.)

Cheers,
David.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[mick crane]

On 2020-11-13 17:09, Dan Ritter wrote:
 On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:20 AM Dan Ritter  wrote:


Something ate it. Weird. d...@randomstring.org is correct.


was sent to d...@randomstring.org
--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Dan Ritter]

Nicholas Geovanis wrote: 
> The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
> gets used or over-used, and the machine locks. Without even a warning
> message. Linux always behaved that way. BSD-derived OS's running on the
> very same commodity Intel hardware dont have that problem. Among my fellow
> system admins the rule-of-thumb became "Don't swap". Give it enough RAM to
> prevent that or re-distribute application load to prevent it. If you cant
> afford that, well  Why does the linux kernel lock the machine without
> messaging when it experiences virtual memory pressure?
> 
> Dan Ritter direct reply to your email addr bounces.
> 
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:20 AM Dan Ritter  wrote:

Something ate it. Weird. d...@randomstring.org is correct.

-dsr-

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Nicholas Geovanis]

The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
gets used or over-used, and the machine locks. Without even a warning
message. Linux always behaved that way. BSD-derived OS's running on the
very same commodity Intel hardware dont have that problem. Among my fellow
system admins the rule-of-thumb became "Don't swap". Give it enough RAM to
prevent that or re-distribute application load to prevent it. If you cant
afford that, well  Why does the linux kernel lock the machine without
messaging when it experiences virtual memory pressure?

Dan Ritter direct reply to your email addr bounces.

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:20 AM Dan Ritter  wrote:

> Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> > I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few
> unending
> > beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's
> for
> > and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
> > real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
> > like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-)
> Same
> > thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
> > wrong?
> >
>
> Want to start a new thread and explain what the problem is?
>
> -dsr-
>

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Nicholas Geovanis]

The problem is the same as the original post: something bad happens, swap
gets used or over-used, and the machine locks. Without even a warning
message. BSD-derived OS's running on the very same commodity Intel hardware
dont have that problem. Why does linux?

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:20 AM Dan Ritter  wrote:

> Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> > I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few
> unending
> > beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's
> for
> > and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
> > real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
> > like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-)
> Same
> > thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
> > wrong?
> >
>
> Want to start a new thread and explain what the problem is?
>
> -dsr-
>

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Dan Ritter]

Nicholas Geovanis wrote: 
> I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few unending
> beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's for
> and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
> real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
> like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-) Same
> thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
> wrong?
> 

Want to start a new thread and explain what the problem is?

-dsr-

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Nicholas Geovanis]

I guess Im not the only crank with antique hardware. One of my few unending
beefs with the linux kernel is swap behavior. Everyone knows what it's for
and how it "works". But even glancing thru the code doesn't explain its
real-time run-time behavior. In contrast, the last time I had swap issues
like that on a BSD-line unix OS was 35 years ago (on DEC hardware ;-) Same
thing with commercial Solaris, HP/UX, AIX. What is the linux kernel doing
wrong?

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 8:35 AM Stefan Monnier 
wrote:

> > When it happens, I'll probably play the same 'upgrade game' with the next
> > 'elderly' candidate (CPU Athlon XP 2500+ 1.84 GHz, 512 MB RAM). I
> purchased
> > it some ten years ago as then second-hand, for some 70 US$, incl. CRT
> > display, keyboard, mouse ... I have recently upgraded it from Deb 8 to 9,
>
> I also like to use my machines "as long as possible" and my game plan to
> maximize their life expectancy is to max-out their memory (since a slow
> CPU will just be slow, but a lack of memory will result in thrashing
> which renders the system much slower than just "slow").
>
> An Athlon XP 2500+ should still be quite usable nowadays, but 512MB is
> on the small side, tho it's probably still adequate for most non-GUI
> uses (my oldest machine is a Thinkpad X30, with a 1.2GHz Pentium III and
> its 1GB of RAM is the main limitation (along with a silly "fallback on
> 30MB/s in absence of 80wire cable" on the PATA port which makes it
> access its M.2 SSD at a rather pedestrian 30MB/s)).
>
> The price of RAM tends to go down over time but only for some years.
> After that, you'll find that the price starts rising again (because
> the kind of RAM you need has become old).  So you want to keep an
> eye on the price of your memory and max it out before its price starts
> rising again.
>
>
> Stefan
>
>

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Vi, 13 nov 20, 14:06:52, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> On 11/13/20 12:12 AM, Linux-Fan wrote:
> 
> > Miroslav Skoric writes:
> > 
> > > On 11/11/20 7:09 PM, Linux-Fan wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Pentium II is old indeed. Whenever using old processors, it is
> > > > important to
> > > > test if the new kernel will still support them.
> > > 
> > > So maybe I shall try some newer kernel only?
> > 
> > If you have an easy means to do that: Yes, I would highly recommend doing
> > that.
> > 
> 
> I'll consider that kind of test (if possible at all). Need to check what
> (newer) kernels are available in Debian 8 repository. Cannot remember now
> what (if any) kernel change occurred when I upgraded 7 to 8.

Just for testing purposes you could try a jessie-backports kernel 
downloaded from snapshots or even the kernel from Debian 9 (stretch).

Using a kernel from a newer release is generally less dangerous that 
many other packages. Worst case one can just reboot to the previous 
kernel.

Beware that LTS support for jessie ended in June 2020.

https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/

That system should be upgraded to some release with security support as 
soon as possible, especially since it's dealing with e-mail as far as I 
understand from your other messages.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Description: PGP signature

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Stefan Monnier]

> When it happens, I'll probably play the same 'upgrade game' with the next
> 'elderly' candidate (CPU Athlon XP 2500+ 1.84 GHz, 512 MB RAM). I purchased
> it some ten years ago as then second-hand, for some 70 US$, incl. CRT
> display, keyboard, mouse ... I have recently upgraded it from Deb 8 to 9,

I also like to use my machines "as long as possible" and my game plan to
maximize their life expectancy is to max-out their memory (since a slow
CPU will just be slow, but a lack of memory will result in thrashing
which renders the system much slower than just "slow").

An Athlon XP 2500+ should still be quite usable nowadays, but 512MB is
on the small side, tho it's probably still adequate for most non-GUI
uses (my oldest machine is a Thinkpad X30, with a 1.2GHz Pentium III and
its 1GB of RAM is the main limitation (along with a silly "fallback on
30MB/s in absence of 80wire cable" on the PATA port which makes it
access its M.2 SSD at a rather pedestrian 30MB/s)).

The price of RAM tends to go down over time but only for some years.
After that, you'll find that the price starts rising again (because
the kind of RAM you need has become old).  So you want to keep an
eye on the price of your memory and max it out before its price starts
rising again.


Stefan

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/13/20 12:12 AM, Linux-Fan wrote:


Miroslav Skoric writes:


On 11/11/20 7:09 PM, Linux-Fan wrote:

Pentium II is old indeed. Whenever using old processors, it is 
important to

test if the new kernel will still support them.


So maybe I shall try some newer kernel only?


If you have an easy means to do that: Yes, I would highly recommend doing
that.



I'll consider that kind of test (if possible at all). Need to check what 
(newer) kernels are available in Debian 8 repository. Cannot remember 
now what (if any) kernel change occurred when I upgraded 7 to 8.


Misko

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/13/20 2:36 AM, Doug McGarrett wrote:

I have been only cursorily following here, since I don't use debian, but 
I wonder if you might
consider upgrading your mother board to a new one the same size and 
shape, with
a faster processor and probably more ram. Then the latest version of deb 
would surely work
and well. It's a full afternoon's worth of work, more than likely, but 
you would have to see
if you think it's worth it. A lot cheaper than replacing the whole 
machine, surely.

--doug




I see. But I think that any such hardware changes (CPU, RAM) are not 
worth. The idea is using that box until its EOL when something major 
dies. (And upgrade the OS & software until it becomes impossible.)


By the way ...

When it happens, I'll probably play the same 'upgrade game' with the 
next 'elderly' candidate (CPU Athlon XP 2500+ 1.84 GHz, 512 MB RAM). I 
purchased it some ten years ago as then second-hand, for some 70 US$, 
incl. CRT display, keyboard, mouse ... I have recently upgraded it from 
Deb 8 to 9, and the only issue was that after upgrade it did not want to 
boot in GUI at all (just stayed at blank screen). I resolved that by 
booting in CLI, and then startx to Mate (when needed).


Misko

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Greg Wooledge]

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:01:19PM +0100, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> At first, I wondered whether Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM, would
> make it even bootable after upgrading 8 to 9. (Without any GUI, if needed to
> be removed before the upgrade).

Yes, it will boot, assuming the upgrade is done successfully.  You are
well above the minimum RAM requirements for Debian 9 (or 10).  IIRC the
minimum RAM requirement is around 80 MB for post-wheezy versions.  It
was 64 MB for wheezy.

> And when bootable, what GUI might be workable at best (Mate, Xfce, ...)?

I would go with a traditional window manager, not a desktop environment.

> At this stage (Debian 8) I do that in MATE + Thunderbird. It's slow but
> works. What is not known is whether that would work in Debian 9.

There's only one way to be sure.  I have no idea how much memory
Thunderbird uses.  It should "work", but if Thunderbird wants more
than 200 MB of RAM, it'll probably swap too much for comfort.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Jo, 12 nov 20, 23:01:19, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> 
> At first, I wondered whether Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM, would
> make it even bootable after upgrading 8 to 9. (Without any GUI, if needed to
> be removed before the upgrade).
> 
> And when bootable, what GUI might be workable at best (Mate, Xfce, ...)?
> As I said, for nothing much more than occasional Thunderbird, or any other
> compatible mail client that can use the CLI-based ham email server (FBB), to
> process pop3/smtp mails by using copy/paste by mouse click etc.
> 
> At this stage (Debian 8) I do that in MATE + Thunderbird. It's slow but
> works. What is not known is whether that would work in Debian 9.
 
If you insist on a Desktop Environment (as opposed to the Window 
Managers already suggested) you should try LXDE.

For e-mail Claws Mail or Sylpheed are probably the fastest GUI options.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Jo, 12 nov 20, 15:07:48, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:40:50 +0100
> Miroslav Skoric  wrote:
> 
> > I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM)
> > running ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very
> > slow after starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try
> > (if possible at all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with
> > such old boxes?
> 
> You are trying to do what we call in the US, a Fool's Errand, that
> is, a fruitless undertaking.  If you could upgrade the RAM to 512MB or
> even 1 GB, you might get usable performance with Debian 8 and a
> lightweight GUI environment or, better yet, a window manager, but
> certainly not with GNOME or KDE. Let me give you an example:
> 
> About 10 years ago, I installed Debian 7 on an Asus EeePC 900 with a
> 900MHz Celeron and 512MB RAM. I tried GNOME first, but even then it was
> too much a resources behemoth to even work. LXDE was lighter;
> however, even with only a browser running, system performance was
> slow, but usable, if you were patient. Upgrading RAM to 1GB made all
> the difference in the world turning a barely usable system into one
> that while not screaming fast was adequate for simple web browsing,
> video streaming, email, etc. which was what it was intended for.

Fast storage (SSD) would also make a big difference, though it's likely 
that machine has only PATA ports.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Doug McGarrett]

On 11/12/20 4:52 PM, Miroslav Skoric wrote:

On 11/11/20 7:42 PM, Felix Miata wrote:




I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running
ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after
starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at
all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?


Which WM or DE is your GUI running? Some use/need a lot more RAM than 
others. If
you want a full DE you might wish to try TDE, a fork of KDE3 
initially created
when KDE went to version 4, 10 years ago. Its latest release is 
available for

Squeeze, Wheezy, Jesse, Stretch and Buster.
 





It is MATE (cannot remember the version). At first I removed all 
graphics, so it remained CLI-only Jesse. Then I installed Mate from 
the repository. Just for occasional use, not 24/7.


Btw, I did not even think of KDE or Gnome because they both were 
terribly slow even in Wheezy.


Did not much test MATE vs. Xfce or LXDE, regarding the speed.


Misko

I have been only cursorily following here, since I don't use debian, but 
I wonder if you might
consider upgrading your mother board to a new one the same size and 
shape, with
a faster processor and probably more ram. Then the latest version of deb 
would surely work
and well. It's a full afternoon's worth of work, more than likely, but 
you would have to see
if you think it's worth it. A lot cheaper than replacing the whole 
machine, surely.

--doug

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Charles Curley]

On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 23:01:19 +0100
Miroslav Skoric  wrote:

> And when bootable, what GUI might be workable at best (Mate,
> Xfce, ...)? As I said, for nothing much more than occasional
> Thunderbird, or any other compatible mail client that can use the
> CLI-based ham email server (FBB), to process pop3/smtp mails by using
> copy/paste by mouse click etc.
> 
> At this stage (Debian 8) I do that in MATE + Thunderbird. It's slow
> but works. What is not known is whether that would work in Debian 9.

Ah. Consider a non-GUI mail user agent (MUA). Pine and elm are old
standards. heirloom-mailx is a very simple program. The most modern is
mutt. The main thing these will not do is handle HTML mail.

Of those, I would recommend mutt. It uses curses, so you get something
that acts something like a GUI. It is highly flexible and configurable.
Do, however, expect a learning curve.

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Linux-Fan]

Felix Miata writes:


Miroslav Skoric composed on 2020-11-12 23:01 (UTC+0100):

> At this stage (Debian 8) I do that in MATE + Thunderbird. It's slow but
> works. What is not known is whether that would work in Debian 9.

Possibly you could boot live media 9 to find out, or if you have enough disk  
space available, install a minimal 9 alongside 8.


The problem with a live system on limited hardware is often the amount of  
RAM.


I am impressed to read that Debian 8 + Mate + Thunderbird works anything  
near acceptable on the hardware. I am curious about a `free -h` output from  
that Pentium II-style Celeron machine :)


Just for comparison, on my old Acer Travelmate laptop (Debian 10), for GUI  
tasks, I run the i3 window manager. It performs acceptably. Starting urxvt  
also works. But whenever I run a "larger" GUI application like the zathura  
PDF viewer (which is pretty minimalistic compared to a full-blown  
Thunderbird), it gets very slow and uses swap. While I have occasionally run  
it this way, I would not consider it really "working" because basic features  
like scrolling become "unusably" slow.


On the other hand, if you are using Mate now and can consider switching to  
something lighter (Icewm and FVWM were good suggestions I saw in the  
thread), chances are it will continue to run slowly "as it used to" - the  
RAM and CPU saved from the DE may just be enough to compensate for the  
higher resource usage of newer software...


PS/OT: My previous message missed the important signature characters: öö.  
Thus its PGP-signature is unfortunately incorrect :(


HTH
Linux-Fan

öö


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Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Linux-Fan]

Miroslav Skoric writes:


On 11/11/20 7:09 PM, Linux-Fan wrote:


Pentium II is old indeed. Whenever using old processors, it is important to
test if the new kernel will still support them.


So maybe I shall try some newer kernel only?


If you have an easy means to do that: Yes, I would highly recommend doing
that.

YMMV
Linux-Fan


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Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Patrick Bartek]

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:40:50 +0100
Miroslav Skoric  wrote:

> I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM)
> running ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very
> slow after starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try
> (if possible at all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with
> such old boxes?

You are trying to do what we call in the US, a Fool's Errand, that
is, a fruitless undertaking.  If you could upgrade the RAM to 512MB or
even 1 GB, you might get usable performance with Debian 8 and a
lightweight GUI environment or, better yet, a window manager, but
certainly not with GNOME or KDE. Let me give you an example:

About 10 years ago, I installed Debian 7 on an Asus EeePC 900 with a
900MHz Celeron and 512MB RAM. I tried GNOME first, but even then it was
too much a resources behemoth to even work. LXDE was lighter;
however, even with only a browser running, system performance was
slow, but usable, if you were patient. Upgrading RAM to 1GB made all
the difference in the world turning a barely usable system into one
that while not screaming fast was adequate for simple web browsing,
video streaming, email, etc. which was what it was intended for.

So, first, before changing anything else, see if upgrading RAM does any
good with 8.

B 

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Felix Miata]

Miroslav Skoric composed on 2020-11-12 23:01 (UTC+0100):

> At this stage (Debian 8) I do that in MATE + Thunderbird. It's slow but 
> works. What is not known is whether that would work in Debian 9.

Possibly you could boot live media 9 to find out, or if you have enough disk 
space
available, install a minimal 9 alongside 8.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/11/20 7:42 PM, Felix Miata wrote:




I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running
ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after
starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at
all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?


Which WM or DE is your GUI running? Some use/need a lot more RAM than others. If
you want a full DE you might wish to try TDE, a fork of KDE3 initially created
when KDE went to version 4, 10 years ago. Its latest release is available for
Squeeze, Wheezy, Jesse, Stretch and Buster.




It is MATE (cannot remember the version). At first I removed all 
graphics, so it remained CLI-only Jesse. Then I installed Mate from the 
repository. Just for occasional use, not 24/7.


Btw, I did not even think of KDE or Gnome because they both were 
terribly slow even in Wheezy.


Did not much test MATE vs. Xfce or LXDE, regarding the speed.


Misko

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/11/20 9:43 PM, Charles Curley wrote:




I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM)
running ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very
slow after starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try
(if possible at all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with
such old boxes?


It is not clear whether you are merely observing that it is slow with a
GUI running, or whether you would like to have a GUI, and are asking
for advice specifically there.

Assuming the latter, what do you want out of a GUI? An absolute minimal
GUI such as FVWM might serve you well enough, but I would not expect
miracles. Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
be surprised if that solution helped.



At first, I wondered whether Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM, 
would make it even bootable after upgrading 8 to 9. (Without any GUI, if 
needed to be removed before the upgrade).


And when bootable, what GUI might be workable at best (Mate, Xfce, ...)?
As I said, for nothing much more than occasional Thunderbird, or any 
other compatible mail client that can use the CLI-based ham email server 
(FBB), to process pop3/smtp mails by using copy/paste by mouse click etc.


At this stage (Debian 8) I do that in MATE + Thunderbird. It's slow but 
works. What is not known is whether that would work in Debian 9.

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/11/20 7:09 PM, Greg Wooledge wrote:



Upgrading to a newer release is not likely to make it faster.  If anything,
it'll be slower (due to increased memory demands of newer software).



That's something I have already experienced with previous upgrades. But 
it was always in full GUI (either Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Mate, etc). While I 
examined that machine for a 'refurbished' CLI-based system, I removed 
all GUI. And it was not so bad. Then I re-installed Mate desktop again, 
just to run it for some specific tasks such as Thunderbird client. Of 
course the GUI + TB is terribly slow, but it is used only once in a while.



It's also worth noting that Debian 8->9 has a huge change to X and video
drivers.  Lots of chipsets are supported *differently* in Debian 9 than
they were in previous versions.  Whether that's good or bad will depend
on the chipset.  Some chipsets may have lost support altogether.



On another machine, a little bit better than the first one, I did have a 
big issue: After upgrading 8->9 and restart it did not want to open GUI 
at all, so the only solution was to boot in CLI, then 'startx' GUI. So I 
suppose than on this (older) box, GUI might be even more problematic. 
(It is Matrox MGA 400.)


On the other side, it makes me wonder if just CLI-only packages in 
Debian 9 would make it too slow after upgrade (if workable at all).



At this point, your system is quite old, and you should not expect it to
last forever.  Even if the software works perfectly, the hardware is
eventually going to fail.  You might want to get ahead of that by buying
something less ancient.  You might even save on electricity by doing this.




Yeah, I know. The point was to use it until the hardware dies :-)
Electricity? It is in the ham union's office, so nobody cares :-)

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

On 11/11/20 7:09 PM, Linux-Fan wrote:



Pentium II is old indeed. Whenever using old processors, it is important 
to test if the new kernel will still support them.




So maybe I shall try some newer kernel only?

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020 23:36:07 -0300
riveravaldez  wrote:

> On 11/11/20, Felix Miata  wrote:
> > Charles Curley composed on 2020-11-11 13:43 (UTC-0700):
> >
> >> Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
> >> be surprised if that solution helped.
> >
> > Why do people keep claiming XFCE is a lightweight?
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvJOXypAbk
> 
> A really good option in this field is IceWM. It has everything a typical
> user needs out-of-the-box and is extremely lightweight (and themeable).
> 

>From my own experience I agree about that.
Still, the tricky part will be to choose other gui programs that are
still usable with the OP's hardware. For example, if they need a gui text
editor, nedit may be light enough for such a machine (that is, if one can
live without proper unicode support) and maybe xfe may still be a usable
gui file manager for them. The display command provides probably a usable
image viewer.
Web browsers will be especially tricky.
If dillo is good enough it will probably behave more or less smoothly.
Using firefox would very likely be not much fun.

Regards

Michael

.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Madness has no purpose.  Or reason.  But it may have a goal.
-- Spock, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7

Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium (was: An old box running Debian 8)

[Long Wind]

   On Thursday, November 12, 2020, 5:24:49 AM GMT+8, Felix Miata 
 wrote:  
Celeron is a budget family of Intel processors, based upon Pentium II, III, 4 
and
newer Pentium processors. Pentium II Celeron means a Celeron based upon the
Pentium II family, the oldest family of Celerons.


OP probably means Pentium II-based Celeron 



  

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[riveravaldez]

On 11/11/20, Felix Miata  wrote:
> Charles Curley composed on 2020-11-11 13:43 (UTC-0700):
>
>> Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
>> be surprised if that solution helped.
>
> Why do people keep claiming XFCE is a lightweight?
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvJOXypAbk

A really good option in this field is IceWM. It has everything a typical
user needs out-of-the-box and is extremely lightweight (and themeable).

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Felix Miata]

Charles Curley composed on 2020-11-11 13:43 (UTC-0700):

> Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
> be surprised if that solution helped.

Why do people keep claiming XFCE is a lightweight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvJOXypAbk
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Celeron vis a vis Pentium (was: An old box running Debian 8)

[Felix Miata]

Long Wind composed on 2020-11-11 20:44 (UTC):

>On Thursday, November 12, 2020, 1:45:18 AM GMT+8, Miroslav Skoric wrote:  

>  I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running...

>...PS: Pentium II and Celeron are two processors.

Celeron is a budget family of Intel processors, based upon Pentium II, III, 4 
and
newer Pentium processors. Pentium II Celeron means a Celeron based upon the
Pentium II family, the oldest family of Celerons.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Charles Curley]

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:40:50 +0100
Miroslav Skoric  wrote:

> I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM)
> running ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very
> slow after starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try
> (if possible at all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with
> such old boxes?

It is not clear whether you are merely observing that it is slow with a
GUI running, or whether you would like to have a GUI, and are asking
for advice specifically there.

Assuming the latter, what do you want out of a GUI? An absolute minimal
GUI such as FVWM might serve you well enough, but I would not expect
miracles. Also consider a lightweight desktop such as XFCE. But I would
be surprised if that solution helped.

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Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Felix Miata]

Miroslav Skoric composed on 2020-11-11 17:40 (UTC+0100):

> I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running 
> ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after 
> starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at 
> all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?

Which WM or DE is your GUI running? Some use/need a lot more RAM than others. If
you want a full DE you might wish to try TDE, a fork of KDE3 initially created
when KDE went to version 4, 10 years ago. Its latest release is available for
Squeeze, Wheezy, Jesse, Stretch and Buster.

-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Linux-Fan]

Miroslav Skoric writes:

I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running ham  
radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after starting  
GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at all) to  
upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?


Misko YT7MPB


Pentium II is old indeed. Whenever using old processors, it is important to  
test if the new kernel will still support them.


As long as you stay on the CLI I do not expect there to be a major  
performance degradation from the upgrade.


I am running Debian 10 on an old laptop (Acer TravelMate 210) with 128 MiB  
of RAM and 700 MHz Intel Celeron (?) and it is slow even on commandline use  
with "heavy" applications like vim or maxima. Other tools, like sc-im run  
quickly enough, though...


HTH
Linux-Fan

öö


pgpdtMjiSEd2L.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: An old box running Debian 8

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 05:40:50PM +0100, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running ham
> radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after starting
> GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at all) to
> upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?

Upgrading to a newer release is not likely to make it faster.  If anything,
it'll be slower (due to increased memory demands of newer software).

It's also worth noting that Debian 8->9 has a huge change to X and video
drivers.  Lots of chipsets are supported *differently* in Debian 9 than
they were in previous versions.  Whether that's good or bad will depend
on the chipset.  Some chipsets may have lost support altogether.

At this point, your system is quite old, and you should not expect it to
last forever.  Even if the software works perfectly, the hardware is
eventually going to fail.  You might want to get ahead of that by buying
something less ancient.  You might even save on electricity by doing this.

An old box running Debian 8

[Miroslav Skoric]

I have an old comp (CPU Pentium II Celeron 400 MHz, 224 MB RAM) running 
ham radio server in Debian 8. It works well in CLI, but very slow after 
starting GUI. I wonder whether it would be worth to try (if possible at 
all) to upgrade it to Debian 9. Any experience with such old boxes?


Misko YT7MPB