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how to speed up linux start sequence?

S

supernova87a

Senior member
Hey all linux and/or redhat 7.2 users -- do you know any way that I can make the boot up sequence go faster? Are there steps that I can take out if not needed? Or for example, when I'm not connected to the network, it always hangs on initializing eth0, for maybe a minute. Can I bypass this?

Thanks!
 
Turn off every service you dont need.
Tune your kernel a wee bit.

Is your NIC using DHCP or a static address?
If it's on DHCP, it will take a short while, there's no getting around that, if it's static, it should be pretty much instant, mine just flashes by when it initializes, but then, Im running Debian.

But in general, RH 7.2 seems to take its good time in booting from my experience.
 
You dont have to bring up the network when you boot. Also tune the kernel, get rid of services (INCLUDING X), and then realize that Windows does not boot that much faster (although it likes to make you think it does 😉). Oh, and dont reboot. 😀
 
It's a laptop, so I do a fair amount of restarting and switching between the windows nt 2000 and linux that's installed on it. Maybe I'll try changing to static ip.


What does tuning the kernel mean? I've used linux for a while, but I'm not that advanced to know what this entails... Also, I'm running kde, so doesn't that require X ?
 


<< It's a laptop, so I do a fair amount of restarting and switching between the windows nt 2000 and linux that's installed on it. Maybe I'll try changing to static ip.


What does tuning the kernel mean? I've used linux for a while, but I'm not that advanced to know what this entails... >>



REconfiguring and recompiling the kernel. Basically take all the crap you dont need out.



<< Also, I'm running kde, so doesn't that require X ? >>



Yes, it does. But X takes its time starting up. Just like getting a usable Windows system takes FOREVER.
 


<< You dont have to bring up the network when you boot. Also tune the kernel, get rid of services (INCLUDING X), and then realize that Windows does not boot that much faster (although it likes to make you think it does 😉). Oh, and dont reboot. 😀 >>



windows XP boots REALLY REALLY fast. (yeah, i know, it doesn't load network immeditately, but I've never had issues with that). I don't reboot much though, so it doesn't really matter 😉
 


<<

<< You dont have to bring up the network when you boot. Also tune the kernel, get rid of services (INCLUDING X), and then realize that Windows does not boot that much faster (although it likes to make you think it does 😉). Oh, and dont reboot. 😀 >>



windows XP boots REALLY REALLY fast. (yeah, i know, it doesn't load network immeditately, but I've never had issues with that). I don't reboot much though, so it doesn't really matter 😉 >>



Since I have never seen it, I will have to take everyone's word for this. But if it does not load the network it has not finished booting. If I cannot logon immediately and immediately see my desktop, it has not finished booting. Does it still access the hard drive like crazy even though it says it is done booting?

Remember, perception is everything. It looks like Windows has finished booting, but as you login there are still things going on in the background that need to be done before the system is fully booted to a usable state.
 


<< Since I have never seen it, I will have to take everyone's word for this. But if it does not load the network it has not finished booting. If I cannot logon immediately and immediately see my desktop, it has not finished booting. Does it still access the hard drive like crazy even though it says it is done booting?

Remember, perception is everything. It looks like Windows has finished booting, but as you login there are still things going on in the background that need to be done before the system is fully booted to a usable state. >>



alright, i'm going to reboot, and time it, just for you ;-). Timing will start as soon as the BIOS finishes POST.
 


<<

<< Since I have never seen it, I will have to take everyone's word for this. But if it does not load the network it has not finished booting. If I cannot logon immediately and immediately see my desktop, it has not finished booting. Does it still access the hard drive like crazy even though it says it is done booting?

Remember, perception is everything. It looks like Windows has finished booting, but as you login there are still things going on in the background that need to be done before the system is fully booted to a usable state. >>



alright, i'm going to reboot, and time it, just for you ;-). Timing will start as soon as the BIOS finishes POST. >>



Ok.
 
<ok>

lol 😀

alrighty. 45 seconds to finish logging in, 50 seconds for IE to load (and the page started to display as soon as it loaded). I had to cancel a scandisk (probably cost ~.5 seconds)

interesting... that isn't that incredibly fast of a boot. they did a good job of making it seem faster than it is... of course, this is to useable gui, and its faster if you dont ahve to log on 😉

edit: for the IE, I double-clicked the icon as soon as the desktop was visible. morpheus (blech), ICQ, and aim were also competing for my poor 5400 rpm drive 😉
 


<< <ok>

lol 😀

alrighty. 45 seconds to finish logging in, 50 seconds for IE to load (and the page started to display as soon as it loaded). I had to cancel a scandisk (probably cost ~.5 seconds)

interesting... that isn't that incredibly fast of a boot. they did a good job of making it seem faster than it is... of course, this is to useable gui, and its faster if you dont ahve to log on 😉 >>



If Im bored Ill time (roughly) my OpenBSD boot time from post to X being up (this will include me logging on and startxing).
 
35-40s. That is with a fresh install of OpenBSD. I also had to type in my username and password then startx, so it wasnt too bad. 😉
 
I never thought this forum would come down to timing boot ups 🙂

I got 16 days of uptime on my box and I ain't rebooting to add any statistics 🙂
 


<< I never thought this forum would come down to timing boot ups 🙂I got 16 days of uptime on my box and I ain't rebooting to add any statistics 🙂 >>



That was basically a little thing between me and CTho9305. I said I could get my system to boot in probably 20s after POST, he didnt think so. I think I did damn well for this being a fresh install and without any optimizations other than killing services (and not all of the ones I should be killing). I think my uptime was 2 -3 days since I installed this over the weekend.
 


Depending on your situation, there are a number of possibilities here. As root, issue the 'chkconfig --list' command. This will list all of the services being started on your computer during bootup. There are some that you could disable in order to shave a few milliseconds. Kudzu is the RH hardware monitor, detecting when new hardware is installed or hardware is taken out. If you dont plan on reinstalling anything (or are capable of doing it manually), you can disable it. hooking this up to a printer? if not, disable lpd. You can turn off any network services that you dont need; httpd, nfsd, nfslock, pppoe, ypbind.

first, figure out what runlevel you currently boot into. then use the command:

'chkconfig --level <x> <package> off'

Like 'chkconfig --level 3 httpd off' would turn off httpd as long as you boot into runlevel 3. use the 'runlevel' or 'cat /etc/inittab' to find out your runlevel.

You can also look at the hard drive speed with hdparm to see if dma is turned on or not. '/sbin/hdparm -i /dev/hda' will give some good information for that. man hdparm for more info.
 
51 seconds for me to get to the KDE desktop from the moment I choose Linux
from my boot menu. Not bad considering that that includes starting up sendmail
(slow) and me keying in a 19 character password.
 
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