[SGVLUG] Time to boot getting longer with Debian

[Dustin Laurence]

On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 03:16:16PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:

> I could just revert to 2.6.12 but 2.6.15 in Debian has improved in
> some ways:  It's complied for a 486 instead of a 386 (2.6.12).

So recompile your 2.2 kernel for your arch and enjoy the feeling of
acceleration. :-)

(OK, not really, since it doesn't matter much on x86, but....)

I also suspect you're not right about the 386--I thought the strict 386
capability was gone sometime ago due to lack of interest in maintaining
the patches.  Or was Debian still maintaining and applying the patches
themselves until recently?

> Note that I'm not just doing this just for my own curiosity.  I hope
> that it will get fixed so that others can use Debian on old PCs.  Yes,
> there the Deli distribution of Linux designed for old PC's and it uses
> kernel 2.2.  But 2.2 doesn't auto-detect and configure hardware like
> 2.6 does so I think that 2.6 should work fast on old hardware,
> especially if more memory has been added..

David, I've noticed that *all* of the "old hardware" and "small device"
distros use a 2.4 kernel.  Most of the really essential 2.6 stuff is
getting backported, so I'd actually recommend sticking with 2.4 in your
case.  Exactly what non-backported feature of 2.6 do you really need?
I'm guessing nothing.

Radical solutions that you won't really want to use but I list for
completeness: go to Slackware (which I've tended to experience as the
most lightweight "normal" distro), or go whole-hog and use Damn Small
Linux.

Or...never shut your computer off except for kernel upgrades. :-)

Dustin

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