Arch Linux

chilebiker

Member

From: Zurich, Switzerland

Registered: 2006-07-18

Posts: 161

How to speed up boot process on old laptop?

I have an old laptop which is being used as offline info-center (kiosk mode), i.e. if someone needs information the laptop is being switched on and off. It's an old HP OmniBook XE3L Laptop with a Celeron 746 MHz, 128 MB Ram, 10 GB HD and a S3 Savage/IX-MV Graphics card.

First I used Mandriva 2007, and the total boot time from switching on the computer until the webpage showed up on Firefox (using KDE) was 1:50 (min:sec). Arch 0.8 with the same configuration boots in 1:25, and with IceWm and Opera it boots in 1:10. The startup is automatic, no passwords are needed.

Is there a way to further shorten the boot time? Especially as my laptop 'hangs' approx. 17 seconds on "Loading UDev events".

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Don't panic!

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: How to speed up boot process on old laptop?

You can trim the "fat" in udev by eleiminating undesired elements.

Check the forums for details on how to do same.

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chilebiker

Member

From: Zurich, Switzerland

Registered: 2006-07-18

Posts: 161

Re: How to speed up boot process on old laptop?

I disabled MOD_AUTOLOAD in rc.conf and load all needed modules in MODULES=(...). This saves me another 4-5 seconds, but it seems that I can't get under 1 minute total boot time without compiling my own kernel

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Don't panic!

.:B:.

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,819

Website

Re: How to speed up boot process on old laptop?

Did you disable the services you don't need?

Also try backgrounding some services. This is my daemons array for example:

DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng @network @cpufreqd portmap @fam @hal @avahi-daemon !iptables @alsa !hplip !cups @crond @openntpd)

My laptop boots in 30s tops - it's a Turion, but with a 4200 RPM HD - damn you Fujitsu-Siemens!

I still have the Uevents that keep it up, so...

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chilebiker

Member

From: Zurich, Switzerland

Registered: 2006-07-18

Posts: 161

Re: How to speed up boot process on old laptop?

Did you disable the services you don't need?

Yes, I only have the modules I need. The daemons are not the problem, they're starting in the background. It's the time wasted while "Loading UDev events" that bothers me, even though I load all modules manually.

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Don't panic!