Which Distro has the fastest boot time?

ioky · 2008-10-04 17:45:36

As the title which Linux has the fastest boot time? Anything faster than 10 Sec is worth to mention.

However, I do want a few thing out of it. I would like some kind of GUI, Web browser, Music Player of some kind, and a good Text editor, along with some CLI software.

I am working on a project on my computer, which allow me dual boot directly from a CF card with a IDE to CF adapter or load it into my powerful OS(Arch Linux). For the most part, you just want to do a quick E mail check before you leave the house. And you don't want the computer on for like 8 hours sitting there doing nothing but waste energy. So I think it would be a good idea to do so. Due to the limitation of my case, I can only have one hard drive. And I don't want to use that one drive to dual boot my computer.

I am really looking in something that only need a few seconds.

hehe Thanks

patogen · 2008-10-04 18:05:14

I would say Mach Boot, they claim that it should boot in 10s. "Boot to a fully usable desktop in as little as 10 seconds". http://linux.wikia.com/wiki/Mach_Boot

Official site seems to be down right now.

Ghost1227 · 2008-10-04 18:14:17

I was just on the official site, not the easiest to understand, but it is functional.

Hide · 2008-10-04 18:14:40

It really depends on your hardware. For example, arch is the fastest on my pc, and it's 17 seconds. I've got A64 3000+ and 2 gigs of ram (DDR1). It's not hard nowadays to have stronger PC than this. Plus, you can always try tweaking Arch for a faster boot.

arch0r · 2008-10-04 18:40:37

patogen wrote:

Mach Boot, they claim that it should boot in 10s ...Official site seems to be down right now.

i think damn small or puppy linux

lilsirecho · 2008-10-04 19:15:03

Faunos has a nice "live" OS that boots to KDE with archlinux packages (600) and can boot in ~60 secs. It operates in ram which gives it a speedy performance.

I have it booting from a Compact flash UDMA device in an Intel based computer using either an IDE to CF or a sata to cf adapter, each powered by the normal FDD five volt connector.

The UDMA CF cards reach 45MB/sec read speed. When booting with the CF cards into a "live" system, there are no writes until the user desires to "save session" to an overlay. To avoid writing to the boot device, an alternate device can be used via USB, for example, to retain the desired packages in a repo.

Faster ram will speed the boot process. Also, if one uses a repo device(another CF for example) much of the boot package load can be placed in that repo for install as needed. This could reduce the boot time considerably.

In my system, I have a repo built from 2 CF cards in raid0 with 15+GB capacity and utilize bookmarks for loading packages from the repo. This repo has 80+ mb/s speed.

Perhaps this is of interest to you....Cfast is coming which will improve the read/write speed while in sataII to a probable 160MB/sec for a single Cfast card.
EDIT: If you boot to CLI, the boot time is reduced and e-mail is available.

Last edited by lilsirecho (2008-10-04 19:20:11)

Gullible Jones · 2008-10-04 19:59:22

Probably Slitaz, or somesuch. Debian and Sidux are pretty fast though. So, surprisingly, is PCLinuxOS.

arch0r · 2008-10-04 20:29:27

and sabayon is definitely the slowest one

haxit · 2008-10-04 20:42:33

I have a 12 second boot time, but if I really wanted to, I could have a 10 second or less boot time

ioky · 2008-10-04 22:25:39

haxit wrote:

I have a 12 second boot time, but if I really wanted to, I could have a 10 second or less boot time

With Arch Linux?

haxit · 2008-10-04 22:56:49

ioky wrote:

haxit wrote:
I have a 12 second boot time, but if I really wanted to, I could have a 10 second or less boot time
With Arch Linux?

Ofcourse!

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=55302

bender02 · 2008-10-04 23:40:08

5 seconds? http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=56229

molom · 2008-10-05 01:03:03

I find this a bit meaningless since you can get the smallest distro available and it will boot it amazingly fast and also really depends on the specs of the machine. You could get Windows 3.1 if possible and boot it on a Quad-core with 8gb of ram. So it really has no meaning asking this question. You can suggest Puppy or DSL and it has all you asked for, but its not as functional as a full distribution using KDE, Gnome or XFCE.
To grab a good speed I simply think Arch + Openbox or Awesome + Customised to your needs = A good boot up time.

Last edited by molom (2008-10-05 01:03:17)

moljac024 · 2008-10-05 07:14:06

Removing graphical login managers and using plain ol' CLI login also helps a lot.
Ask haxit if he is loading gdm or slim or similar crap

verve · 2008-10-05 09:32:26

molom wrote:

I find this a bit meaningless since you can get the smallest distro available and it will boot it amazingly fast and also really depends on the specs of the machine. You could get Windows 3.1 if possible and boot it on a Quad-core with 8gb of ram. So it really has no meaning asking this question. You can suggest Puppy or DSL and it has all you asked for, but its not as functional as a full distribution using KDE, Gnome or XFCE.
To grab a good speed I simply think Arch + Openbox or Awesome + Customised to your needs = A good boot up time.

Exactly. The question shouldn't be "how fast" but "what and how fast" are you booting.

k.mandla · 2008-10-05 09:59:07

Crux in 16 seconds on a 550Mhz Celeron.

Zibi1981 · 2008-10-05 10:26:58

I'm at the moment deep inside the process of installing Arch on my laptop (MSI MegaBook GX600P-208NL). I want to use KDE4. Is it possible to boot to this DE in 60 seconds (I mean the time from starting the booting process till having a complete Desktop in front of me)?

Exitium · 2008-10-05 11:05:07

My Arch's boot time is about 5 seconds.

And my WinXP's (dualboot with Arch) boot time is 4 seconds. ^^ (Okay, I have modified it with nLite )

molom · 2008-10-05 11:12:26

Exitium wrote:

My Arch's boot time is about 5 seconds.
And my WinXP's (dualboot with Arch) boot time is 4 seconds. ^^ (Okay, I have modified it with nLite )

What?!! What specs do you have? XP booting in 4 seconds?!! Does nlite fix XP up that well?

moljac024 · 2008-10-05 11:18:06

molom wrote:

Exitium wrote:
My Arch's boot time is about 5 seconds.
And my WinXP's (dualboot with Arch) boot time is 4 seconds. ^^ (Okay, I have modified it with nLite )
What?!! What specs do you have? XP booting in 4 seconds?!! Does nlite fix XP up that well?

It's probably a ram drive...

molom · 2008-10-05 11:38:07

moljac024 wrote:

molom wrote:
Exitium wrote:
My Arch's boot time is about 5 seconds.
And my WinXP's (dualboot with Arch) boot time is 4 seconds. ^^ (Okay, I have modified it with nLite )
What?!! What specs do you have? XP booting in 4 seconds?!! Does nlite fix XP up that well?
It's probably a ram drive...

ooohhhh... right..... Not doing that.

haxit · 2008-10-05 14:58:17

moljac024 wrote:

Removing graphical login managers and using plain ol' CLI login also helps a lot.
Ask haxit if he is loading gdm or slim or similar crap

Of course I am not! CLI for the win, with auto xinit instead of auto startx thanks to you

AsA · 2008-10-05 15:14:40

I think Slitaz has a really fast boot, once installed on hard drive...
I use it on a 1998 P3 with 64Mb of RAM and it needs only 20 seconds to reach openbox from GRUB.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-10-04 17:45:36

Which Distro has the fastest boot time?

#2 2008-10-04 18:05:14

Re: Which Distro has the fastest boot time?

#3 2008-10-04 18:14:17

Re: Which Distro has the fastest boot time?

#4 2008-10-04 18:14:40

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#5 2008-10-04 18:40:37

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#6 2008-10-04 19:15:03

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#7 2008-10-04 19:59:22

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#8 2008-10-04 20:29:27

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#9 2008-10-04 20:42:33

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#10 2008-10-04 22:25:39

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#11 2008-10-04 22:56:49

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#12 2008-10-04 23:40:08

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#13 2008-10-05 01:03:03

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#14 2008-10-05 07:14:06

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#15 2008-10-05 09:32:26

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#16 2008-10-05 09:59:07

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#17 2008-10-05 10:26:58

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#18 2008-10-05 11:05:07

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#19 2008-10-05 11:12:26

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#20 2008-10-05 11:18:06

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#21 2008-10-05 11:38:07

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#22 2008-10-05 14:58:17

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#23 2008-10-05 15:14:40

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