Tip: Using Upscayl on an old Haswell desktop under Linux

[Spirograph12]

I have a Dell Inspiron 3847 desktop, with a Haswell era (2013) CPU that sports Intel HD Graphics 4600 on the chip. The CPU is i5-4460 @ 3.20 GHz (4 cores). Upscayl 2.15 works just fine out of the box provided I use an older Linux with older mesa/vulkan drivers. YMMV

Specifically, I found Upscayl 2.15 works fine under Linux Lite 5.8, which is based on Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS. The standard kernel and drivers I'm getting from Linux Lite 5.8 are:

GOOD:
Kernel: 5.4.0-216-generic (x86_64)
Mesa Vulkan driver versions: 21.2.6-0ubuntu0.1~20.04.2

With the same old 'puter, Upscayl mostly throws up vk (vulkan) errors on my more modern daily driver OS, which is Linux Mint XFCE 22.3:

BAD:
Kernel: 6.8.0-137-generic
Mesa Vulkan driver versions: 25.2.8-0ubuntu0.24.04.2

So if you're having trouble getting Upscayl to work under an old Haswell CPU, one thing to try is to carefully install Linux Lite 5.8 to a USB connected drive, boot from that, and run the Upscayl 2.15 appimage in that environment. You might find it "just works." No guarantees.

Probably there are other Linux distros which use a 5.x kernel and series 21 mesa-vulkan drivers that would also provide a good environment to run Upscayl 2.15 on an old Haswell (or even earlier?) CPU. (I had an HP 3500 MT desktop with Ivy Bridge CPU, and as I recall, Upscayl ran okay on that under Linux Lite 5.8. Not super fast on an old Ivy Bridge, but error-free operation. Again, YMMV.)

In the best of possible worlds, you want to run the most recent Linux and most recent drivers; but it's well-known in retro computing circles that sometimes with old hardware, old drivers provide greater compatibility. Use them as a last resort.

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS

You can DL the official Linux Lite 5.8 ISO from Sourceforge here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-lite/files/5.8/linux-lite-5.8-64bit.iso/download

Do NOT let the installer go on the Internet or it may hang. Instead, do this:

1. Pull out the ethernet cable from your computer before installing Linux Lite 5.8.
2. When queried for a WiFi connection, check the box which says something like "I don't want to connect to the Internet right now."
3. Also be sure to UNCHECK any boxes which offer to download updates or media codecs during the installation. If you do 1,2 and 3, the installer should complete w/o hanging.

After installing Linux Lite 5.8, do a full update (around 600 packages), and reboot. Then in Synaptic package manager (or in the terminal), install these 2 packages:

mesa-vulkan-drivers
vulkan-tools

REBOOT

Now download the Upscayl 2.15 appimage and make it executable.

Start using Upscayl! You should find that it's working well. If not:

• Make sure you successfully installed Linux Lite 5.8.

• Make sure that after installing Linux Lite you did a full update (around 600 packages).

• Make sure you successfully installed mesa-vulkan-drivers and vulkan-tools.

• Make sure you made the Upscayl appimage executable.

Reminder: This tip is a workaround for people having trouble getting Upscayl to work on an old Haswell (or possibly Ivy Bridge) CPU with Intel HD Graphics. Consider it a last resort.