MX Linux Forum

That's a good idea. I have an ssd that I can use.

The only thing I noticed was that all Short and Long tests on the HDD did not register the hours-age (around 4400 hrs, IIRC) of the drive, only zero.

Ya, but I cannot tell you how many drives I have had "pass" testing and then when I swapped them out the issues I was having went away.

Ok, here's what I did. I found a 5400rpm HD with only 234 hours on it, so I used that. Installation was very slow, maybe 40 minutes. Once up everything was great. FF played video at about 75% CPU, FreeTube played it at 55%, which is excellent for this machine.

I did the updates, and the 6.1.x.37 linux-headers again appeared, this time they installed fine. The machine is not fast due to the HDD, but it is smooth.

And so this morning I booted again, it defaulted to the .37 kernel, but this time I chose SystemD. Absolute disaster. Jerky mouse, CPU never resting, performance terrible.

Booted back to .37/SysV, and it's smooth as glass again. Idling at 1-3%.

So, tentatively, it seems I had a compound problem – a hard drive on the way out, and systemd incompatibility with this machine - and that made it tricky to square root. I will have to put it through a few more cycles to be sure. The hard drive problem was well-concealed, because I had been through three of them trying to get this machine to work, and I thought surely all three couldn't be bad, right? Wrong.

I still may throw an SSD in there, just to see what the machine wants to be. But the guy I'm donating it to is not able to spring for an SSD at this time.

paul1149 wrote: Mon May 26, 2025 8:32 am compound problem – a hard drive on the way out, and systemd incompatibility with this machine
I still may throw an SSD in there, just to see what the machine wants to be. But the guy I'm donating it to is not able to spring for an SSD at this time.

Compound problems are second only to Intermittent faults when it comes to infuriating issues in general.
Glad you have a usable machine at least. I should mention that, on my E-350 system, I did install an SSD; which goes a long way to improving loading/booting times and general responsiveness.

Sounds like your making great progress! Great job there!

You can pick up quality, smaller SSD's for under $20 at amazon. I usually pick up one of the following if I am donating machines and dont have any spare / used SSD's.

https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-NS100-128G ... B07TKGGJ1T
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital- ... B076XWDN6V
https://www.amazon.com/PNY-CS900-250GB- ... B07XZLW68F

@CharlesV Thanks!

I think I can confirm now, after several boots, that the problem is solved. It's running just about perfectly. It really would be sweet with an SSD, but that's out of my hands for now.

Thanks to all for the insight and guidance. And @retroD0d0, FreeTube is a winner. Newbies can even use it to download YT.

paul1149 wrote: Mon May 26, 2025 8:34 pm @CharlesV Thanks!
FreeTube is a winner. Newbies can even use it to download YT.

Bear in mind it doesn't use the YT API like Official app and SMtube, it scrapes the website. You can't sign in and like and subscribe. comment etc, The 'subscribe' option is actually more of a bookmark.

@paul1149
It was an interesting to hear how much impact you remarked switching to systemd. Out of interest, have you tried running MX service manager in both modes and compared the number of total background services? It's eye-opening.

@Nokkaelaein has a good point, it is an area worth researching because if we know the specific bottlenecks we may be able to optimise for older hardware with minimal loss of functionality.

For me. running on old hardware, I have felt three things makes mine so lean, snappy and usable, sysV, antiX kernel and XFCE.