Arch Linux

funkyou

Member

From: Berlin, DE

Registered: 2006-03-19

Posts: 848

Website

Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

Today i tried to improve my startup time. I already have a customized Kernel, but i use the standard Arch layout (initrd etc) with it, so i looked for other places to improve my boot time.

Parallel startup was already enabled on my machine:

DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng gensplash @crond @gpm network portmap hal avahi-daemon @avahi-dnsconfd @lisa @samba @alsa @cpufreqd kdm)

This is the initial bootchart:

Then i disabled parallel startup:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng gensplash crond gpm network portmap hal avahi-daemon avahi-dnsconfd lisa samba alsa cpufreqd kdm)

Here is the result:

And just to try it out, i added a "&" to the /sbin/modprobe $mod line in rc.sysinit:

Never mind what i am doing, the startup time is always 21 seconds. I also noticed that the disk thoughput is about 10mb higher with @parallel startup disabled (i hope i do not misunderstand it).

So what can i do to improve the startup a little bit more? (Without removing daemons)
And why does the parallel startup changes nothing?

Not that it isnt fast enought, but i am asking myself about the parallel stuff and how i maybe can improve it a little more, if that is possible

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want a modular and tweaked KDE for arch? try kdemod

Susu

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2005-11-11

Posts: 191

Website

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

I've never cared much about a fast boot nor boot charts but backgrounding several deamons at boot gives me a (subjectively) faster boot. But I'm too lazy to measure it anyway... *g*

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Album reviews (in german): http://schallwelle.filzo.de

Acid7711

Member

From: Chicago, IL

Registered: 2006-08-18

Posts: 300

Website

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

For me, backgrounding certain things such as network and such speeds things up.  But then in the end, all I get is a black screen waiting for kdm to pop up.  Kinda sucks, cuzz before it loaded right up. It's not like my computer is slow or anythin either.

funkyou

Member

From: Berlin, DE

Registered: 2006-03-19

Posts: 848

Website

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

You can improve KDM startup by doing fc-cache -fv from time to time

---

want a modular and tweaked KDE for arch? try kdemod

Acid7711

Member

From: Chicago, IL

Registered: 2006-08-18

Posts: 300

Website

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

Hmm, that's a new one for me. Thanks. I'll give it a try.

retsaw

Member

From: London, UK

Registered: 2005-03-22

Posts: 132

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

I did find putting kdm at the start of the list and backgrounding it made an improvement to my boot time, but I didn't get that much improvement from backgrounding other stuff.

The best thing I did for my startup times was using suspend to RAM rather than turning off completely.  Before that I had to live with the BIOS taking ~8s just to get to the bootloader, with STR my computer takes less time to be usable than it would normally take to start booting the kernel.

Ikarus

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-07-05

Posts: 41

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

Which tool are you using to create those charts

Zaffe

Member

From: Santiago, Chile

Registered: 2007-02-22

Posts: 26

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

Which tool are you using to create those charts

pacman -S bootchart

Acid7711

Member

From: Chicago, IL

Registered: 2006-08-18

Posts: 300

Website

Re: Is @parallel startup of services useless? Trying to optimize startup

I did find putting kdm at the start of the list and backgrounding it made an improvement to my boot time, but I didn't get that much improvement from backgrounding other stuff.

The best thing I did for my startup times was using suspend to RAM rather than turning off completely.  Before that I had to live with the BIOS taking ~8s just to get to the bootloader, with STR my computer takes less time to be usable than it would normally take to start booting the kernel.

I found the exact opposite.  Mine:

DAEMONS=(@kdm @hal @network @netfs @crond @syslog-ng @cups
@samba @lisa)

Leads to a very fast load, but still have to wait for kdm.  I haven't restarted since I did the command that funkyou suggested though, so I'll have to see if that actually made a difference or not.