Consider continued support of kernels <5.4

Can kernel 4.19 remain in the repos, because this kernel sounds best with my Audio PC ?

clarification edit: in response to

I have searched in the internet and found kernel 4.19 will be supported until december 2024.

The kernels 4.14, 4.9 and 4.4 run a bit slow on the Audio PC and do not sound good.

Here is inxi -Fza:

System:
  Kernel: 4.19.225-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-4.19-x86_64
    root=UUID=ac251b1e-acba-4428-80cb-290f5fa33f0d rw quiet apparmor=1
    security=apparmor resume=UUID=8225025a-afb0-4ed8-957a-753af4b7bb74
    udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.29 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.16.1
    vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Kvm System: Gigabyte product: N/A v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Gigabyte model: N3150ND3V serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI: American Megatrends v: F4 date: 04/11/2016
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Celeron N3150 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Airmont family: 6
    model-id: 0x4C (76) stepping: 3 microcode: 0x368
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 4 smt: <unsupported> cache: L1: 224 KiB
    desc: d-4x24 KiB; i-4x32 KiB L2: 2 MiB desc: 2x1024 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 917 high: 1011 min/max: 480/2080 scaling:
    driver: intel_pstate governor: powersave cores: 1: 904 2: 1011 3: 894
    4: 862 bogomips: 12800
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: spec_store_bypass status: Not affected
  Type: spectre_v1
    mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional,
    IBRS_FW, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx
    Integrated Graphics
    vendor: Gigabyte driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:22b1 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.21.1.3 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.16.1 driver:
    loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2")
    s-diag: 582mm (22.9")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93
    size: 527x296mm (20.7x11.7") diag: 604mm (23.8")
  Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series
    High Definition Audio
    vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
    chip-ID: 8086:2284 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: VIA VT1720/24 [Envy24PT/HT] PCI Multi-Channel Audio
    driver: snd_ice1724 v: kernel bus-ID: 06:00.0 chip-ID: 1412:1724
    class-ID: 0401
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k4.19.225-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.20 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.43 running: no
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169 v: kernel port: d000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 942.7 GiB used: 54.48 GiB (5.8%)
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 PRO 512GB
    size: 476.94 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 4B6Q scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 870 EVO 500GB
    size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 2B6Q scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 100 GiB size: 97.87 GiB (97.87%) used: 8.24 GiB (8.4%)
    fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 maj-min: 8:4
  ID-2: /boot raw-size: 1024 MiB size: 973.4 MiB (95.06%)
    used: 103.5 MiB (10.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2
  ID-3: /boot/efi raw-size: 301 MiB size: 300.4 MiB (99.79%)
    used: 288 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
  ID-4: /home raw-size: 200 GiB size: 195.8 GiB (97.90%)
    used: 42.17 GiB (21.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 maj-min: 8:5
  ID-5: /var raw-size: 166.73 GiB size: 163.06 GiB (97.80%)
    used: 3.97 GiB (2.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6 maj-min: 8:6
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.91 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 26.8 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 176 Uptime: 2m wakeups: 10 Memory: 7.7 GiB
  used: 1.57 GiB (20.4%) Init: systemd v: 250 tool: systemctl Compilers:
  gcc: 11.1.0 clang: 13.0.0 Packages: pacman: 1129 lib: 343 flatpak: 0
  Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.12

The sound card is ESI Audio Julia.

What about kernels 5.4, 5.10 and 5.15? Does any of those work for you?

Kernel 5.4 sounds a bit rough.
Kernel 5.10 sounds sharp in the high range.

I haven´t tested kernel 5.15 until now. Will test it.

I support the proposal. Especially since the kernels <4.19 support less webcams.

1 Like

What has a webcam to do with sound quality ?

I support the suggestion to keep old kenels, especially 4.19.

And good sound is important for video chatting.

Who uses kernels <= 4.14 ?

I guess not much people use kernels older than 5.4.

I have tested kernel 5.15 with the ESI Audio Julia.
The mid range sounds a bit hollow.

The best sound result is achieved with kernel 4.19, but this can depend on the sound card.
A newer sound card may sound better with newer kernels.

The issue is firmware compression which has been enabled upstream.

Kernels below 5.3 does not support compressed firmware which makes it next to impossible to support older kernels.

https://archlinux.org/news/linux-firmware-202201190c6a7b3-2-requires-kernel-53-and-package-splitting/

1 Like

Now, I can move my Audio PC to trash.

I’m not an audiophile, but I never noticed any difference in sound quality between various kernels. Maybe you can find workarounds, settings, or even the origin of such a difference you hear.

I don’t think throwing the towel like that would be productive. At the end of the day it is for you so you do what you want.

This difference between can be heard easily with high quality audio equipment.

And what files that you use. Say that you use the same files you have Riped from the cd in the Early 2000’s… It’s going to sound crap.

I am using music streams from the internet (like www.surfmusik.de) or
FLAC 24 Bit 192 kHz.

I don´t know the cause of sound difference of the kernels.

Can I use the kernels from www.kernel.org in Manjaro ?

The Manjaro kernels are built from the kernel.org sources.

They just have addition patches on top.

See PKGBUILD of linux516 as an example.

1 Like

They’d be unable to load the compressed firmwares just the same and therefore not work either.


edit:

If you’re feeling up to experiment (on a spare machine/vm), you could try uncompressing all firmware files in /usr/lib/firmware after linux-firmware package updates and then booting up older kernels from www.kernel.org should work just fine.

1 Like

Step 3 is the config from the running kernel (I think), so boot up 4.19 and save the config file.