Checking In On Ubuntu Karmic's Boot Time

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Checking In On Ubuntu Karmic's Boot Time

By the time Ubuntu 10.04 LTS rolls around next April, Canonical is interested in seeing Ubuntu boot on an Intel Atom netbook (specifically the Dell Mini 9) in less than ten seconds. These incredibly fast boot time goals even led Canonical to decide against investing more time in enhancing the boot experience with Red Hat's Plymouth. Canonical has already come close to achieving this with the Ubuntu 9.04 release earlier this year, but how is Ubuntu 9.10 changing the boot time with defaulting to the EXT4 file-system and their other ongoing changes? In this article, we have re-installed Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04, and a 9.10 development snapshot on two netbooks and one laptop to see how Ubuntu's boot time is changing.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14144

[hobbes]

We will run these tests again on more systems once Ubuntu 9.04 is golden and as Ubuntu 10.04 LTS approaches.

I believe you meant to say "Once Ubuntu 9.10 is golden"

[Timo Jyrinki]

The "10 second boot time" for 10.04 LTS means _to the desktop_, not to the gdm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in this case bootchart was stopped at S99/rc2.d, and no automatic logging in was used.

There are often unclearness about what the "boot time" means, but Ubuntu developer(s) have specified, which I support also, that the only meaningful boot time is from GRUB to desktop with all services started and system usable. (the time before GRUB cannot be affected)

[gQuigs]

In my own tests I found that just by installing the 2.6.31 kernel buys you a couple seconds. So everything else in 9.10 had to get worse. .

[poofyyoda]

Strange, because on my AMD single core system, the boot times are far noticeably faster on 9.10 and also X starts very fast too.

[MadsRH]

I do believe that the boot performance delivery milestone is the beta (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsT...eStatus/Karmic)

So it looks like there's more to come ;-)

//MadsRH
anotherubuntu.blogspot.com

[TeoLinuX]

The "10 second boot time" for 10.04 LTS means _to the desktop_, not to the gdm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in this case bootchart was stopped at S99/rc2.d, and no automatic logging in was used.

There are often unclearness about what the "boot time" means, but Ubuntu developer(s) have specified, which I support also, that the only meaningful boot time is from GRUB to desktop with all services started and system usable. (the time before GRUB cannot be affected)

I agree with you on how to define a meaningful boot time

[deanjo]

I agree with you on how to define a meaningful boot time

Give me a working suspend over fast boots any day of the week.

[TeoLinuX]

Give me a working suspend over fast boots any day of the week.

You're damn right.
I was only discussing about the method to define a "boot time"

[Silverthorn]

...(the time before GRUB cannot be affected)

If it only where possible to (easily!) replace the proprietary BIOS with coreboot. Then every aspect of the boot procedure could have been manipulated.