[Debian-eeepc-devel] Booting fast

[Jelle de Jong]

Phil Endecott wrote:
> Paul Menzel wrote:
>> Anyway I was thinking that not only EeePC users are interested in this
>> but also owners of other netbooks and for example thin client users and
>> Debian users in general.
>>
>> So I am wondering how we could get these other interested people
>> involved and to participate?
>>
>> I came up with the following.
>>
>> ? Create a dedicated page in the Debian Wiki. I did not find one.
>> ? Setup a dedicated mailing list on Alioth.
>>
>> What do you think? Do you have more ideas?
> 
> Would you have seen my work if I had put it on a Wiki page rather than 
> posting here?  Or on some other Debian list?
> 
> One issue is that Arjan and Aoke's original work itself seems to be 
> "homeless" i.e. there is no obvious mailing list, wiki or similar where 
> it should be discussed.
> 
> It would be great to see this applied to more systems.  Of course 
> generic fast booting is harder than hacking one particular system (i.e. 
> hardware and combination of installed packages).  I have done two 
> things that should help with this:
> 
> - My script to take your kernel .config and convert modules to 
> built-ins for the things that you actually use (see this message: 
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.eeepc/1015/focus=1050).  
> If Debian had a way to make a custom kernel, it could use this script 
> to help generate its config.
> 
> - The mods to /etc/init.d/udev that I described yesterday for 
> pre-populating /dev aren't tied to any particular system and can cope 
> with upgrades if you re-generate its tar file.
> 
> It would be great if some Debian people would like to use what I've 
> done as a starting point for getting all Debian systems to boot more 
> quickly.  However, my guess is that there would not be agreement that 
> the benefits outweigh the costs: the current Debian boot process did 
> not emerge by accident.  I fear that I don't have the energy to push 
> this into Debian myself.  (And I also have about a million other things 
> that I should be doing.)
> 
>> could you please post your current timings for booting?
> 
> Currently the time from the end of grub to the xdm login dialog being 
> visible is 17 seconds.  But these numbers are difficult to compare 
> because of different features (e.g. xdm vs. gnome, wireless on/off etc.)
> 
> I am impressed by Jelle's "14 to 17 seconds".  The posted graph shows 
> 17 seconds, but in my experience it is a few seconds from the end of 
> that graph to the X login dialog being visible.  Jelle, can you measure 
> (with a watch) the time from the end of grub to the X login dialog appearing?
> 
> I hope to get this down to about 12 seconds.
> 
> Phil.
> 

I have to check this out sometime, the boot graph was of a slow start
with lots of usb devices mouse keyboard bluetooth and dvb-t system. Also
my network is non parallel with X because I got major issues with this
during shutdown (network was not logged down yet for unmounting sshfs
mounts so the disk did not unmount correctly) good parallel network can
save 2 to 10 seconds depending on manual or dhcp based internet)

I am very interested in a good manual to speed up udev en preloaded
kernel modules this will probably get my boot time down drastically.

Best regards,

Jelle