ASUS Eee PC 901 Linux Boot Performance

As you can see from our Bootchart results, Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 6 was the fastest of the four distributions tested both when it came to the timed process of booting the Linux distribution and the maximum disk throughput. Mandriva 2009 Beta 2 was the second fastest at booting followed by Fedora 9 and Fedora 10 Alpha. Fedora 10 Alpha took 14 seconds longer to boot than Fedora 9, but that is explained by the debugging options and other changes in this development release. Fedora 10 Alpha also had the lowest maximum disk throughput. Of course, these results were from using the stock packages and configuration in each of these distributions. With some tweaking, any Linux distribution can be made to boot faster by stripping out unneeded modules, removing extra processes, and making other optimizations. Below are the full Bootchart details for each of the distributions tested.

Update: Mandriva's Adam Williamson notes that the final version of Mandriva 2009 should boot faster than the second beta release.