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#26 2008-05-31 23:40:30

dunc
Member
From: Glasgow, UK
Registered: 2007-06-18
Posts: 559

Re: Speedup boot

_Marco_ wrote:

since dhcp is done (at least for the interfaces listed in /etc/rc.conf, eth0 only for me) by the network daemon (correct me if I'm saying an heresy) I've put the network daemon in background (@network) ... so even dhcp is done "in background" and you don't lose seconds ...
imho

Maybe it's growing up in the days of sub-10MHz 8-bit machines where every CPU cycle was precious that does it, but I'd be wary of that. You could be right, and backgrounding it will mean that it's done when there are some "spare" cycles, but it's still got to be done. By going down the static IP route, you make sure that it doesn't have to be done at all. Call it obsessive ricing if you like, but I just think it's "cleaner": I don't really care if it's faster or not.

Last edited by dunc (2008-05-31 23:41:22)


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#27 2008-06-01 07:43:10

_Marco_
Member
Registered: 2008-04-21
Posts: 242

Re: Speedup boot

@dunc
cleaner it's obviously cleaner..
(anyway backgrounding the network daemon save you in case of "disconnected interface" too,
example if I unplug ethernet, the network daemon will wait for timeout of eth0 to continue the boot,
backgrounding it allow you to skip the (very) big wait...)

@everyone
for the initrd point.. take a look at this post
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 69#p374569
I found it very useful

bye

Last edited by _Marco_ (2008-06-01 09:00:24)

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#28 2008-06-01 20:06:33

pfreire
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2008-05-12
Posts: 29

Re: Speedup boot

Well, I think we could get some seconds of boot time in xserver loading. I've searched a bit on google and I found this Fedora project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/OneSecondX "aimed at faster X Window System launches" - any one knows something about such project? Is there any code we can have a look at?

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#29 2008-06-01 20:32:36

dunc
Member
From: Glasgow, UK
Registered: 2007-06-18
Posts: 559

Re: Speedup boot

_Marco_ wrote:

(anyway backgrounding the network daemon save you in case of "disconnected interface" too,
example if I unplug ethernet, the network daemon will wait for timeout of eth0 to continue the boot,
backgrounding it allow you to skip the (very) big wait...)

Good point.


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#30 2008-06-02 01:28:17

pfreire
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2008-05-12
Posts: 29

Re: Speedup boot

It's always a good idea to start the network daemon asynchronously. Having IPV6 enabled behind a router can be relevant since the router may not support it, giving a delay if you contact for instance an ntp server as I do.
For now I have 21s boot time with a lot of daemons (virtualbox, mysql, etc), but it was a bit faster when I used my compiled kernel (this is the Arch default kernel)
bootchartlo1.th.png

Last edited by pfreire (2008-06-02 01:37:08)

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#31 2008-06-02 15:15:31

Mon1018
Member
Registered: 2008-06-02
Posts: 3
Website

Re: Speedup boot

My boot time is currently 29 seconds, but I hope to get it faster.

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#32 2008-06-02 15:23:27

X/ax
Member
From: Oost vlaanderen, Belgium
Registered: 2008-01-13
Posts: 275
Website

Re: Speedup boot

pfreire wrote:

It's always a good idea to start the network daemon asynchronously. Having IPV6 enabled behind a router can be relevant since the router may not support it, giving a delay if you contact for instance an ntp server as I do.
For now I have 21s boot time with a lot of daemons (virtualbox, mysql, etc), but it was a bit faster when I used my compiled kernel (this is the Arch default kernel)
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/4055 … lo1.th.png

I don't really dare asking it, but what program did you use for that img (chart thing)?


My coding blog (or an attempt at it)
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#33 2008-06-02 15:26:27

bangkok_manouel
Member
From: indicates a starting point
Registered: 2005-02-07
Posts: 1,556

Re: Speedup boot

X/ax wrote:
pfreire wrote:

It's always a good idea to start the network daemon asynchronously. Having IPV6 enabled behind a router can be relevant since the router may not support it, giving a delay if you contact for instance an ntp server as I do.
For now I have 21s boot time with a lot of daemons (virtualbox, mysql, etc), but it was a bit faster when I used my compiled kernel (this is the Arch default kernel)
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/4055 … lo1.th.png

I don't really dare asking it, but what program did you use for that img (chart thing)?

http://www.archlinux.org/packages/search/?q=bootchart i guess

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#34 2008-06-02 18:36:22

dunc
Member
From: Glasgow, UK
Registered: 2007-06-18
Posts: 559

Re: Speedup boot

pfreire wrote:

It's always a good idea to start the network daemon asynchronously.

Just to be clear, I didn't say don't start the network daemon asynchronously - I do it myself - I just wondered if you'd really get much speedup as long as it was still using DHCP. (And I don't really know - but I prefer static IP for its simplicity, regardless.)


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#35 2008-06-02 18:59:54

X/ax
Member
From: Oost vlaanderen, Belgium
Registered: 2008-01-13
Posts: 275
Website

Re: Speedup boot

bangkok_manouel wrote:
X/ax wrote:
pfreire wrote:

It's always a good idea to start the network daemon asynchronously. Having IPV6 enabled behind a router can be relevant since the router may not support it, giving a delay if you contact for instance an ntp server as I do.
For now I have 21s boot time with a lot of daemons (virtualbox, mysql, etc), but it was a bit faster when I used my compiled kernel (this is the Arch default kernel)
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/4055 … lo1.th.png

I don't really dare asking it, but what program did you use for that img (chart thing)?

http://www.archlinux.org/packages/search/?q=bootchart i guess

Thanks smile


My coding blog (or an attempt at it)
Archer start page (or an attempt at it)

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#36 2008-06-04 13:31:24

broch
Banned
From: L.A. California
Registered: 2006-11-13
Posts: 975

Re: Speedup boot

kernel needs disk and fs before everything else. Compile these into kernel and compare image loading to the same kernel with disk/fs compiled as modules.
Except the above other devices can be compiled as modules as these are is not required for booting and will not affect boot time.
After removing from kernel all things that I am not using, boot time measured by bootchart went down to 22s on a relatively slow and not that new laptop (2 yrs) with 5400rpm disk (obviously disk speed has more impact than cpu on booting time).
video drivers also will slow down boot time (compare boot time with and without nvidia driver).
DHCP - set networking in background and difference between static and dhcp will be no more than 1s (with exception of slow dhcp server which can be fixed by unlimited IP lease time)

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#37 2008-06-04 18:33:59

pfreire
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2008-05-12
Posts: 29

Re: Speedup boot

My laptop is from 2003 I guess, so it's an old one too,  HDD is still a 4200 RPM model so 21s is quite good. I've found some nice yet old documents regarding speed improvment checks/recomendations in here:
http://www.gnome.org/~lcolitti/gnome-startup/analysis/ (I will explore this a bit more)
http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index … opic=45625

Oh by the way, I use XFCE as the WM with SLIM; for the filesystem I use XFS. I'm also using preload.

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#38 2008-06-05 09:32:43

kevin89
Arch Linux f@h Team Member
From: Netherlands
Registered: 2007-03-14
Posts: 218

Re: Speedup boot

Don't know my exact boot-time, i'll time it later. But it's not much. Using Athlon 3200+ and 1 gb or ram.

What have I done?
- Disabling unneccesary tty's in /etc/inittab
- Backgrounding all my daemons
- Auto login to XFCE4, saves the hassle of a login manager or typing startx

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#39 2008-06-05 10:05:19

robmaloy
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2008-05-14
Posts: 263

Re: Speedup boot

complete boot time (from power on to dwm+1 urxvt) about 1:30 on a pentium III with 700MHz and 192mb ram

i once compiled my own kernel and afterwards couldnt boot because i set the scsi driver from module to built-in (root fs not found)

do i need to use persistent device naming?

Last edited by robmaloy (2008-06-05 10:06:19)


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#40 2008-06-05 11:27:39

_Marco_
Member
Registered: 2008-04-21
Posts: 242

Re: Speedup boot

@ kevin
I've tried to reducing boot time commenting some tty too, but I don't see any improvement..
when I have some time I'll recompile the kernel hoping in a big placebo effect tongue

@ robmaloy this is strange AFAIK intram simply load the modules before mounting the file system, so if you have them built in in the kernel you should have no problem, are you sure that you didn't forget some necessary module?

Last edited by _Marco_ (2008-06-05 11:28:08)

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#41 2008-06-05 13:10:18

broch
Banned
From: L.A. California
Registered: 2006-11-13
Posts: 975

Re: Speedup boot

pfreire wrote:

My laptop is from 2003 I guess, so it's an old one too,  HDD is still a 4200 RPM model so 21s is quite good. I've found some nice yet old documents regarding speed improvment checks/recomendations in here:
http://www.gnome.org/~lcolitti/gnome-startup/analysis/ (I will explore this a bit more)
http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index … opic=45625

Oh by the way, I use XFCE as the WM with SLIM; for the filesystem I use XFS. I'm also using preload.

nice that my old suse stuff is still useful smile

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#42 2008-06-05 14:43:14

JeremyTheWicked
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2008-05-23
Posts: 193

Re: Speedup boot

I've built a custom kernel (w/o the need for an initial RAM disk) and I only gained a 2 second speed up during boot time and the responsiveness of the system seems to be the same as with the stock kernel. Not worth the effort.

In general I think that this speeding-up-boot thing is similar to compiling everything yourself: you loose more time fiddling with it than you actually gain.

E.g. I boot my laptop 2 times a day on average. I spent about 5-6 hours setting up the new kernel (a part of it was caused by my problems with the fglrx driver). That means that I need to boot my machine at least 9000 times to start gaining time from this process - that gives 12 years of using the system. Given the fact that I will be buying a new laptop soon - it wasn't worth it at all.

edit: typos

Last edited by JeremyTheWicked (2008-06-05 14:44:33)


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#43 2008-06-05 14:57:11

dyscoria
Member
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 1,007

Re: Speedup boot

JeremyTheWicked wrote:

you loose more time fiddling with it than you actually gain.

Agreed!! I did for a while do some massive tinkering (including various Udev tweaks), and cut the boot time down to <15 seconds (as measured by boot chart). The loading of the BIOS was about another 10 seconds iteself though, and with my laptop uptime going into the weeks it seems a little pointless to worry that much about boot time.


flack 2.0.6: menu-driven BASH script to easily tag FLAC files (AUR)
knock-once 1.2: BASH script to easily create/send one-time sequences for knockd (forum/AUR)

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#44 2008-06-05 15:22:31

broch
Banned
From: L.A. California
Registered: 2006-11-13
Posts: 975

Re: Speedup boot

I spent 25 min (10 min diff and 15 min compiling) with each new kernel.
default boot time 45s, now 22s
I am using laptop as mobile not desktop (so several boots a day)

whether you get something or not, is up to you

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#45 2008-06-05 15:46:28

_Marco_
Member
Registered: 2008-04-21
Posts: 242

Re: Speedup boot

well, one of the best things of arch is that "it's as you want"
I want a faster system tongue
for the "it's not worth the effort" point, I consider optimization "a hobby"

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#46 2008-06-05 19:43:29

pfreire
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2008-05-12
Posts: 29

Re: Speedup boot

_Marco_ wrote:

well, one of the best things of arch is that "it's as you want"
I want a faster system tongue
for the "it's not worth the effort" point, I consider optimization "a hobby"

That's my point too. smile

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#47 2008-06-05 23:35:21

koch
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2008-01-26
Posts: 369

Re: Speedup boot

i didn't spend much time on this but i never did my own kernel.
why did i try to reduce boot time?

because of fun and because i don't wanna wait til my system is ready to use.

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#48 2008-06-06 07:44:15

robmaloy
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2008-05-14
Posts: 263

Re: Speedup boot

_Marco_ wrote:

@ robmaloy this is strange AFAIK intram simply load the modules before mounting the file system, so if you have them built in in the kernel you should have no problem, are you sure that you didn't forget some necessary module?

that was my own fault, i removed the hard disk controller driver big_smile

btw with my "latest" kernel (no initrd \o/), results of hardinfos benchmark are ~20% worse than with the stock kernel. seems like i suck at kernel configuration (maybe it was the "optimize for size" option? compiling without it right now)


☃ Snowman ☃

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#49 2008-06-06 09:22:43

krigun
Member
From: Norway
Registered: 2005-06-06
Posts: 122
Website

Re: Speedup boot

I believe that running your system from a "crazy fast" SSD will probably do magic for your boot time.

Something like this: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl … 26/1224213

I know that the disks cost an arm and a leg, but is anybody running Arch on an SSD?

Or.. You could put your root filesystem on an I-RAM. Check out this demo (showing Windows XP): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4jFpIt6bw8

Last edited by krigun (2008-06-06 09:26:07)

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#50 2008-06-06 09:40:42

_Marco_
Member
Registered: 2008-04-21
Posts: 242

Re: Speedup boot

I think that the asus eeepc use a SSD so the archers (and they are a lot) benefit of this
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39375

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