alternative kernels in Sparky

[uzer]

Hi!

I am wondering if it would be possible to add a couple of additional kernel builds as an alternative to the Debian stock. It is not about going with completely different version of the kernel, but a few that would work on 99% of all home/office PCs, eg.: why would I want 40Gb Infiniband, MTD, SiS or Via bridge, EISA, or some 15 year old ISA SCSI controller support on a 64bit distribution? or even most of the proprietary hardware support, that 99% of us never even heard about?
This example goes beyond my suggestion - it is a totally different kernel version, vanilla, unstable, etc., but it shows quite some boot time improvement, and not only ( some debugging stuff has been removed ).

The user could then test the >stock< Debian built, plus have an option to choose an alternative kernel that would offer a few advantages over the stock.
This is not very common feature available among other Debian based distros, all/most of them are running the same kernel, without an alternative.
So take a look at this "quick" example that I made to "visualize" one of the advantages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeqDJ2XBLGE

Mike

[MoroS]

Hi Mike.

That's on the TODO list. I have a task for adding an option to install other kernels via "Sparky APTus", but that's still a TODO. The first one to get included is the Liquorix kernel, which I use with Sparky ever since I started using it as my main distro. If you know any other interesing kernel builds, then why not post them here? I might include them as well after making sure that they're stable enough.

Regards.

[uzer]

If you know any other interesing kernel builds, then why not post them here? I

Hi MoroS,

Well, I do not look for any interesting kernels, other than kernel.org. I do not expect any superb results with any kernels coming from Debian, or Ubuntu, although the last one confirmed to have better builds, especially recently ( no issues with Intel e1000(e) driver compared to Debian's builds, that were causing kernel panic either during boot, or an OOPS after 2-3 days of uptime - but it looks like some ppl responsible for this did not give a hoot ). I do build the kernel myself, either from scratch or I take one of the specific config files and simply get rid of stuff that is simply safe to remove, such as SiS and Via chipset support, or some other primitive crap, or most of "truly" proprietary hardware support and features ( incl debug ) in x86_64.
The 4.1rc3 is my built as well... Unfortunately I will not suggest to use any "prebuilt" one other than a few Ubuntu kernel versions over Debian. I will not suggest to use any "derastic" patches, such as BFS which is rather a big time crap in my opinion - maybe good for some single core P4 systems...  nothing really else. 
For me it is important to have a quite responsive system, without suff like 1000 HZ on 8 core Xeon box... which rises the power consumption, and heat, and the performance is debatable, and/or tough to justify.
Cool, I'll check out Liqurix kernel probably still today :-]

Thanks!

[MoroS]

Cool, I'll check out Liqurix kernel probably still today :-]

You should be able to enable the repo for Liquorix via APTus. It's pretty much up-to-date with stable releases from kernel.org (not the RCs though), but tends to get a bit too far compared to Debian's possibilities (nvidia-driver for 4.0 kernel anyone? just a rethorical question ;) ).

As for the other part of the message: it's been a long time since I build the kernel myself (last time when I was using Gentoo), but the results were always great. Throw out stuff you don't need, adjust parameters to your own hardware and you get a blazing fast system. I've always used heavy software to check efficiency (lot of I/O when starting up) like OpenOffice or Thunderbird. Stock kernels always took few seconds to load them. The custom? The moment I clicked, I had the program window open (especially Thunderbird). :D Other than that the whole thing was more responsive, software compilation times were noticibly shorter, etc., etc. It was fun back then. :)

[GeneC]

For reference:

I have been using Liquorix kernels since I first installed Sparky last year.  No issues, and they run fine.

On Lappy

Code Select Expand

gene@sparky:~$ inxi -SG
System:    Host: sparky Kernel: 3.19-3.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: N/A
           Distro: SparkyLinux Tyche
Graphics:  Card: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.1 driver: intel Resolution: 1440x900@59.96hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ironlake Mobile GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.4.2


On my Desktop
I  am following Debian SID on Sparky (XFCE) and have the lastest 4.0 Liquorix kernel.

I installed them using the  SMXI scripts.  Nice to hear they may be coming to Sparky APTus.. :)

[uzer]

(nvidia-driver for 4.0 kernel anyone? just a rethorical question ;) ).

I do not get it... nvidia ver 346.72 supports 4.0 & 4.1, eg.: on Gentoo ( ebuild created on May 13 ), driver released May 12.

ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/346.72/


and for some reason you.tube  marked my Sparky's custom kernel video as private... unblocked and available :-]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeqDJ2XBLGE

M.

[MoroS]

I do not get it... nvidia ver 346.72 supports 4.0 & 4.1, eg.: on Gentoo ( ebuild created on May 13 ), driver released May 12.

That's right and there's no problem for the 346.72 version. The problem is that Debian Testing has the nvidia-driver version of 340.76, which doesn't compile against the 4.x kernels.

Even the Gentoo's ebuild for this version states that (I'm a former Gentoo power-user myself, stage1 FTW ;) ):

Code Select Expand


...
ewarn "Gentoo supports kernels which are supported by NVIDIA"
ewarn "which are limited to the following kernels:"
ewarn "<sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.18"
ewarn "<sys-kernel/vanilla-sources-3.18"
...

https://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers/nvidia-drivers-340.76.ebuild?revision=1.6&view=markup

And since Sparky is 99% based on Debian Testing, the 340.76 DKMS will attempt to build itself, which fails on 4.x kernels (luckily I confirmed, that it still works on 3.19).

[uzer]

Got it... thanks.

[way12go]

Recently I've been using liquorix kernel and the journey is smooth. I'm a happy user now. But, I've absolutely no knowledge of what you guys do with kernels. Yup I like to do the same, for now I'm happy that I'm at least in good health. Better than ever. But, never better than you guys. I've got Paranoid type Schizophrenia.

Right now I'm happy with the non paid limited/hidden moderator job at ChaletOS.info [[[ If I get paid, any time anywhere... I will surely donate to Sparky ]]]

Cheers.

[MoroS]

Aahhh... Looks like the recent update to nvidia-drivers package makes it build for 4.0 kernels (here is the output for the recent Liquorix). :)

Code Select Expand


Building initial module for 4.0-4.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64
Done.

nvidia-current:
Running module version sanity check.
- Original module
   - No original module exists within this kernel
- Installation
   - Installing to /lib/modules/4.0-4.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64/updates/dkms/

nvidia-uvm.ko:
Running module version sanity check.
- Original module
   - No original module exists within this kernel
- Installation
   - Installing to /lib/modules/4.0-4.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64/updates/dkms/

depmod....

DKMS: install completed.


PS. Pavroo was quicker (he has a little more time to spare recently) and added the Liquorix installation option to APTus: http://sparkylinux.org/sparky-aptus-0-2-10-1/ :)

[pavroo]

I also got my wifi bcm43142 working back on liquorix 4.0 (dkms built the module today).
Anyway linux-image-4.0 is in sid repos now.