are updates in old system necessary?

kwstas · posted: 2011-03-03 09:45

Guys, i'm in a mist concerning updates, repos etc. and i need some advice on these.
after some googling i understand that in some cases updates are not necessary.

in my case for example that i use Antix to give life to my old machine, what i need is the apps to be light as possible.
so if i have configured this system to my needs:

web-surfing(even watch utube videos!)
playing music/videos
Dosbox
MAME
apps/games through wine

with no obvious problems, why should i make the updates? i just imagine that as updates are getting built in newer systems and of course more things get added, they get heavier. isn't it right?

Maybe i could just make only the security updates(as i read somewhere), maybe not all of them or is this also unnecessary?

rokytnji · posted: 2011-03-04 01:51

Short answer. No. No need to update if so desired if everything works to your satisfaction. As far as getting heavier. Depends on what you have installed.

Just for reference. What I am posting from right now. Antix 8.5 Full with a apt-get dist-upgrade done today. Panasonic CF-48 wireless Laptop.

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$ inxi -F
System:    Host biker Kernel 2.6.32-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M8.5-rc2 Marek Edelman 08 February 2010
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium 4 Mobile (-UP-) cache 512 KB flags (sse sse2) bmips 2394.87 clocked at 1200.00 MHz 
Graphics:  Card ATI Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500] X.Org 1.7.7 Res: 1024x768@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer Software Rasterizer GLX Version 2.1 Mesa 7.7.1 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller driver Intel ICH at ports 1c00 1880 BusID: 00:1f.5
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.21
Network:   Card-1 Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG [Calexico2] Network Connection driver ipw2200 v: 1.2.2kmprq BusID: 02:03.0
           Card-2 Realtek RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ driver 8139too v: 0.9.28 at port 4400 BusID: 02:02.0
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 100.0GB (7.3% used) 1: /dev/hda FUJITSU MHU2100AT 100.0GB 
Partition: ID:/ size: 16G used: 3.5G (24%) fs: ext3 ID:swap-1 size: 1.55GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
Info:      Processes 84 Uptime 1:51 Memory 266.8/1262.2MB Runlevel 5 Client Shell inxi 1.4.20 
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:    Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux testing (wheezy)
Release:    testing
Codename:    wheezy
$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda4              16G  3.5G   11G  24% /
tmpfs                 632M  8.0K  632M   1% /lib/init/rw
udev                   10M  248K  9.8M   3% /dev
tmpfs                 632M  4.0K  632M   1% /dev/shm
/dev/hda6             7.9G  3.3G  4.2G  45% /mnt/hda6
/dev/hda7              41G  102M   41G   1% /mnt/hda7

This is a multi boot laptop and I use grub4dos to keep things organized between Operating systems.

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# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5e48b8a5

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1930    15502693+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            5659       12161    52235347+   5  Extended
/dev/hda3            3939        5658    13815900    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hda4            1931        3938    16129260   83  Linux
/dev/hda5           11974       12161     1510078+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6   *        5659        6694     8321607   83  Linux
/dev/hda7            6695       11973    42403536    b  W95 FAT32

Hope that helps answering your question. On a side note. On my IBM 390E (14" screen Model) that I sold with a 6 gig hardrive and with AntiX 8 on it. I never ugraded the the install because everything worked OK on it and it was a Pentium 366Hz , 128 MB ram Laptop. The retired old guy (first computer also) who bought it from me because he wanted a working Linux laptop to learn Linux is happy with it. It uses PCMCIA Xircom ethernet and a DLink WNA 1330 PCMCIA atheros wireless card when I sold it. I gave him the AntiX CD and a Puppy 4.12 CD that works with that Lappy also.