SliTaz Forum

slitax - old hardware

(6 posts) (3 voices)

• Started 4 years ago by dkuchay
• Latest reply from dkuchay
• This topic is not a support question

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1. 

   dkuchay
   

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   To All Developers,

   I would like to encourage the development and release of a version of Slitaz that is more compatible with older hardware. There are three things that motivate this request.

   After many days of reading of both docs and forum posts I think that I can speak for many that more recent versions of slitaz leave many versions of older hardware unsupported. Your distribution advertises support for PC’s with 256mb of ram. Only by my observation your distribution is leaving a great deal of hardware as left the dust and unsupported.

   My reasoning is more package related and most not would not see this. No fingers being pointed here. This is linux eco-culture related. Lets look at inputattach for an example. Its only available in your most recent release (v5) in linuxconsoletools package. Inputattach was 8 years behind the rest of linux on development to support current hardware. They only started to support serial devices from varying manufacturers around version 1.14 or so. If you investifgate they varied as much as ten years on some hardware. In my rather acute application I have two or three version of linux I can choose for my very old but industrial hardware. I say this because as soon as inputattach got their sh*t together syslinux, hal and uev all updated within close time tables to the point that I need to make custom kernel and enable some items that are marked (depricated).

   I wonder how many others out there look to your distribution for answers on keeping their old hardware supported and with purpose. Only to run in to compatibility issues with your more recent offerings? I have played with linux for 20 years and if I didnt know that I needed syslinux under version 3.83 I would have never even posted on your site. I would have figured it didnt work and moved on to puppy linux. Puppy is not supporting old hardware any longer so you guys really are it. I emplore to you that a version of your OS with older syslinux or old grub by default may be a good thing and would find many homes and help keep lots of older hardware alive today. No reason to move off of v5 development endeavors. Just kick out an iso with old boot loaders, thats all.

   If no-one has the time or resources to do so please send me a beta on a doc that I can test for building myself. Wok is like inventing a new language for an old concept. While I endeavor to understand it slows me down. Your docs are there but I cant find what I am looking for until I read it all twice to factor in the terminology. Scratch-slitaz seems a little old but is very intriguing. I would prefer to do something like this than adapt to alien terminology. I cant find docs that cover building a kernel or a whole f using wok. Can someone link? Is it within one doc or will I need to have 10 browser tabs open to know how to use it? This is where slitaz I feel turns some away. I am tenacious and will learn but since you invented this terminology you will hear my pain. I know 3.16.55 still supports many older hardwares. At 5. kernel gave middle finger. I would be happy to endeavor, I just lack the familiarity on newer tools. Some of your terminology causes headaches. Cooking packages with iso files names cooking... Where is the thesaurus? I am old school. Prefer the functionality in observed name over cartoon naming. But that is okay. I will adapt. I just want to voice the need for this as over 70 percent of people who try will not know how to report problems to you. And based on your last two releases not supporting hardware that lands within your description of what is supported on Slitaz..... you see where I am coming from.

   Posted 4 years ago #
2. 

   enigma9o7
   

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   Hi, I can tell you know what you're talking about, I'm a noob to slitaz and dont understand their terminology either, but you're obviously far more experienced with linux than me.

   But I think the "old hardware" thing must be relative. The reason I started using Slitaz about a month ago was cuz of what I considered old hardware, and it runs GREAT!@#!@# The only thing it didnt support out of the box was my gamepad (which is actually fairly new), but was easy enough to add support for once I knew how.

   In my case, my old hardware is a 15 year old 32-bit Pentium 4 with 512MB. I've tried puppy on it, and tried lubuntu, and settled with bodhi (stripped down ubuntu with forked E17) for more than a year. But I wanted something faster and tried Slitaz, and am SUPER IMPRESSED. I can now open multiple browser tabs and terminals and file manager and everything at once and computer still responsive, and the super convenient cpu/ram monitor in my panel helps me stay on top of resources and out of swap.

   My computer wouldn't boot the iso from usb, I dunno why. Tried writing it with dd, etcher, unetbootin, nothing worked. I was finally able to workaround it, I posted a thread on here nobody helped me with, but when I ran isohybrid on it under ubuntu it fixed it and then I could write & boot it. (I wonder if this is at all related to your comments about needing old syslinux)

   It sounds like to me you're complaining even the 5.0 rolling with kernel 3.16 is too new for "old hardware". So it must come down to what you consider "old hardware". Cuz I know my old hardware will run newer kernels just fine. But I don't really understand that stuff. Under Bodhi 5.x Legacy, which comes with Linux 4.9, it runs great. I tried installing the 5.3-hwe kernel and computer still boots, don't see any new errors, but it seems slower to me. So I went back to 4.9 because my uneducated self is guessing it must include some optimization for my old hardware that they took out by 5.3. Still have the newer kernel in grub menu tho...

   And, upstream support for Linux 3.16 kernel is supposed to end next month...

   Since I've started using Slitaz with my old hardware, I keep running into things that dont work when I try to build from source cuz so much stuff is too old... glibc too old or qt too old or mesa too old or whatever.

   So I think the point is, everyone has different experiences and desires and defines terms different. But I am curious what your old industrial hardware is ;)

   Posted 4 years ago #
3. 

   enigma9o7
   

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   On another note about being the distro of the future for old hardware, there is something to that. Ubuntu's recent release doesnt include 32-bit, so all the ubuntu based distros, including lubuntu, are dropping 32-bit support moving forward. So Slitaz is going to be one of the few distros still maintained with 32-bit support. But, the updates are old!

   Posted 4 years ago #
4. 

   fredyfred
   

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   ..and some things keep going in spite of being abandoned.
   In macrumors there are guys still using old PPC powered macs as their everyday computers.
   These are PCs with PPC processors ie pre intel ..more or less abandoned by Apple now.

   They have found ways of using Sid debian as a base for linux systems or ways of using browsers on their dated OS so that they can handle modern web pages.

   I like Slitaz cos it works on my dated intel PCs (and on my Imac)...where as most of the other light weight distros I tried couldn't work on my dated gear..

   Posted 4 years ago #
5. 

   dkuchay
   

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   enigma0o7, I have not been able to get newer than Slitaz v3 for the reason of syslinux updated ~ version 4.0 to the point of leaving a lot of hardware that had non standard bios unsupported. Much of this “segment” is industrial or former military hardware. In my case I used to run webdt.org and I was able to make images of linux for this hardware only for.a brief snapshot of time.

   Yes as soon as things started to go 64 bit i had noticed that I could not install a vendor touchscreen driver on the hardware I supported. The vendor suggested tryng open source software in place of their driver. This is where I indicate inputattach is software that lagged behind by 8 years. As soon as they caught up on making hundreds of devices “supported” syslinux and grub and udev and hal all updated to the point of not supporting much of the hardware that other softwre providers lagged upon. I say thi is almost like windows xp finally gettting stable and it was promptly end of lifed. So I can only boot the hardware I speak of on version 3. But the inputtattach utility I need is only available in 5-rolling. But I cant boot 5 rolling Many maintainers do not know of some of the ecosystem caveats of how little updates can leave many unsupported.

   I do not complain about newer kernel. I can go up to kernel-v5 although it gets bigger as you go. I have 256mb of ram. I am happy to see that v5-rolling has linuxconsoletools and xinput_calibrator as I would use both in place of vendor touchscreen utility. If I want to use Slitaz I will need to elevate myself to developer and spin or “cook” or “Wok” my own set of packages to get a usable os for my hardware. While I am quite used to building my own kernel to support the hardware the whole OS is also not that hard for me. Adapting to tool that all have similar names that do somewhat different things.... This is harder for me. I am probably looking at a months worth of effort to get all the receipts for each package hand written and to insert my own blend of software versions that I know would work on old hardware.

   This is why I put out a call to developers. As I am having a hard time with documentation and toolsets and aligning the two in a recent context I ask if anyone has a build environment setup that can spin out v5-rolling or even 4.0 with old syslinux bootloader v3.82? Until documentation on tools gets to a higher quality I fear that there is a gap on purpose. I see RTFM here and there by lead devs in forum but docs are not organized for developers to take interest in slitaz. I think that Slitaz has wonderful technology and philosophy. The taz tools that are there seem to work fairly well in most cases but I have existed for the last 10 years on wikis like arch linux and gentoo where documentation is a step above. Shows examples and use cases. In Slitaz I usually have no less than 20 browser tabs open hunting one thing out.

   Im glad Slitaz works for your older hardware. I am writing to indicate that via one small change they may be leaving a lot of hardware out there as unsupported.

   Posted 4 years ago #
6. 

   dkuchay
   

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   I’ve joined the mail list for syslinux and there seems to be some consensus on certain trends from multiple members on that list. Some are distribution maintainers. Most linux distributions that advertise support for older hardware do not go above syslnux 3.83. This includes most puppy mainline distributions, debian, slackware and more.

   The syslinux house asks me to try 3.86 and report bugs as I have old hardware. They also want me to try version 6 saying I will have more options on fail to report upon. The idea here is that they and others on the list acknowledge that version 3.83 was one of the last to support older hardware.

   I well understand wanting to get something working on a newer laptop or to support newer code but 3 distribution releases ago your team decided to stick with syslinux version 4.05 while you still advertise support for older hardware. Somewhat counterproductive based on how you advertise the distribution. I cant boot v4, v5 or next on older hardware. I’m also having a horrible time trying to use your documentation for basic tasks like rebuilding the stock kernel, again, to better support older hardware.

   How about a compromise? On 32 bit non uefi iso files you folks look in to using old syslinux for releases? On 64 bit uefi capable releases make it as new as you want? Who on a 32 bit non pae computer would benefit from having a boot loader that does newer hardware support but drops older hardware to do so?

   Ask me to find more of these, please:

   https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=146929

   If you still want to advertise support for older hardware you might want to look in to shipping 32 bit iso files with version 3.83 of syslinux. Do what you want with 64 bit but three releases ago you made this decision and it dropped a lot of support for older hardware. Your kernel could use some config refinement as well. With that version of syslinux you probably are causing more frustration than you know considering how Slitaz is advertised...

   Posted 4 years ago #

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