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MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 165  

Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Where will we get out 32 bit kernels from?

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

This works:
https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/l … sh.en.html

Example:
https://get.refracta.org/files/testing/ … 5_1010.iso

sha256sum:

5ba7eab51ee52a50a7eb5203c01a7ea836551e177ca3b4a96a4f70cb58b000ed  refracta_13_nox_libre_i386-20250425_1010.iso

If you need nonfree firmware, you'll need to find a different solution.

MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 165  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Hey that's wonderful thanks, it's for my eee pcs so no need for the firmware or pae, they take max 2GB ram!
Downloading that kernel now and will try it on eee pc later

MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 165  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Hey, tried out refracta, very nice system, eee pc nearly full with no desktop tho!

Just a question, why is the latest i386 kernel from there 330MB when the last 6.1... kernels were 188MB?
300+ is the size of the amd64 kernels, so are these i386 kernels being compiled with all amd64 bits included but unused or something or have they actually needed to double in size?
Where to find modern secure small i386 kernels???

Last edited by MLEvD (2025-05-25 13:43:28)

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 474  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Probably because mainline kernels include all the new drivers......or it may not have been stripped.

Last edited by Camtaf (2025-05-25 14:20:24)

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,764  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Hello:

... why is the latest i386 kernel from there 330MB ...

In one word: bloat

eg:

Devuan Chimaera netinstall *.iso: 372.00 MB - UEFI installer: 00.754 MB
Devuan Daedalus netinstall *.iso: 477.80 MB - UEFI installer:  23.00  MB
30X more code has been added to the UEFI partition on the road between Chimaera and Daedalus.
Does anyone really know exactly what all that added code does?

My 2Gb 1000HE runs on Devuan Beowulf with a backported Chimaera kernel:

$ uname -a
Linux eee-dev3  5.10.0-0.deb.10.16-686-pae  #1 SMP Debian 5.10.127-2-bpo10+1 (2022-07-28)  i686 GNU/Linux
$

Given the 2Gb max RAM access, I could probably do without the -pae but it is already there and for the time being I'd rather not muck around with things I don't know enough/much about.

That said, I have recently been wondering about the eventual benefits (?) of upgrading the kernel but have not been able to find sufficient reason to do so.

It has been a long time since I travelled with my 1000HE; these days it stays at home doing coffee roasting duty with no issues.
Only goes on line behind a passive Gbit desktop switch once in a blue moon if I need to test something.

I look forward to reading about how you fared with this.

Best,

A.

MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 165  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Yes they all (my asus eee pc fleet) still run fine on every kernel since 3.16, they just all have different esoteric messages on boot.
I mean, is there some way to just include all relevant new security updates to an old kernel without worrying about new features or hardware that the asus eee pc will never know or be able to run?

The poor little 2G surf, I just managed to get lmde 6 onto it with latest kernel and 300 MB free space of the 1.87MIB ssd. No room for newest kernel upgrade. They can run the  new kernels, but can't install them!

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,764  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Hello:

... run fine on every kernel since 3.16 ...

I expect that it would be the same with my 1000HE which is ca. 2009.

... to just include all relevant new security updates ...

No idea, but I expect that it could be possible.

From what little I understand, it seems that the task would involve compiling a kernel from source but including only what you need for your netbook.
ie: tailored for your target hardware and compiled on it.

There's also the question of who is going to do it and then maintain it.
For starters, is there a large enough user base?
There used to be specific eee kernels / distributions but as the differnet models were mothballed, they lost all traction.

Interesting side note:
Asus does not have the eee series in theri tech support databases.

I have recently been able to get a very important boost for my netbook by enabling zram and generating a /dev/zram0 swap file.

... features or hardware that the asus eee pc will never know ...

The Asus eee series is not alone in this.
Absolutely every discontinued and perfectly working netbook / notebook is in the same situation.

All victims of the decades old WinTel consortium. (see what is going on with Win 11 these days)

Best,

A.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Oops! My EEE has a 128G ssd, so I didn't think a lot about disk space. I recently added a 32G sd card so I could run excalibur without losing my daedalus install (or my win XP install which I keep only for nostalgia). The EEE sees it as a usb storage device, so it's bootable.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,764  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Hello:

... added a 32G sd card ...

Fortunately, your eee model can boot from that size card.

Much to my chagrin, my 1000HE's BIOS won't see a USB storage device larger than 8.0Gb, that's (?) the limit for booting from USB.
I asked at Asus tech support but they 'don't know'.
Ventoy solves that problem.

The system, once up and running, can see and access a 64Gb USB3.0 drive without issues and (I presume) higher capacity.

... (or my win XP install which I keep only for nostalgia).

Glad to see I'm not the only one.  8^°

Best,

A.

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 474  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

To get a more up to date kernel, maybe copy your kernel config file over & try running it with the modern kernel source code..... (?)

Last edited by Camtaf (2025-05-25 17:09:47)

MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 165  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

If some good folk would be happy to compile kernels for eee pc I'd be not only happy, my obsessively compelled to try them out on many eee, though I hesitate to say test.
Been enabling zram on a few eee, it seems to help, especially when torturing the fanless ones with cinnamon desktop and browser action. On the 4G / 630mhz single core the name of the game is no fan even in high summer, so ram ceiling isn't important, so the question is, does zram not increase overall cpu and/or ram usage?

If you have a 128gb ssd then I bet you don't have the bios boost partitions, but never fear, I have put them on drop box, you can copy one of them with gparted and easily recreate the other using gnome-disks, make the fat partition 513KB instead of 7.84MiB if you like!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/koa3hdwa … 6wtxc&dl=0

Link changed to point to actual file >.<

Last edited by MLEvD (2025-05-25 19:20:43)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Uh-oh. I upgraded my excalibur minimal-X system and made a new live-iso. It doesn't boot. Drops to initramfs prompt and says it couldn't mount the squashfs. This is with linux-image-6.12.30-gnu. I made another live-iso that includes the 6.12.24-gnu kernel and that boots normally. (Note: both kernels boot normally in the VM I'm using to make the isos.)

mount /run/live/medium/live/filesystem.squashfs: fsconfig() failed: unable to read squashfs_super_block.

Here's a screenshot that shows the error message in /boot.log
https://get.refracta.org/files/misc/mou … -00-38.png

Edit: Found an iso I made on May 12 with 6.12.28-gnu that works.

MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 165  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

There's a 17 MB bios boot boost partition for eee pc xp too! I should put that online too.

One does wonder about the breadth of testing of new 32 bit kernels, so many million use cases, so fewer eee pc users ;_:

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Update:  I'm trying more kernels and I asked a question in #gnu-linux-libre (libera.chat)

6.12.30-gnu has the problem.

6.12.28-gnu and 6.12.24-gnu both work.
6.12.30-gnu.nonpae works.
6.14.8-gnu (non-lts) works.

MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 165  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Can you please also ask why 330+MB rather than around 188MB?

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

Update. If I downgrade to the previous version of mount, the isos boot. (i.e. they can loop-mount filesystem.squashfs)

mount, fdisk libfdisk1 and uuid-runtime were all downgraded from 2.41-5devuan1 to 2.38.1-5+deb12u3devuan1

I filed a bug report against mount - https://bugs.devuan.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=892

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

About that size issue...
I poked around a bit. Most of the difference is in /lib/modules and most of that is drivers. libre has more directories and files there than debian and all the .ko files in the debian kernel are xz-compressed. That accounts for around 200mb difference.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Debian not providing new 686 kernels in Trixie

linux-libre 6.15.0 with the current version of mount (2.41-5devuan1) is working correctly. Here's an iso in case anyone wants to play with it.
https://get.refracta.org/files/experime … 0_1739.iso

sha256sum

4d19d4a9f1f28eb5548fc3b141f83fece1a9df0640cdb6bbc63a528944b41306  refracta_13_minx_ndb_libre_i386-20250530_1739.iso