HowTo: Speed up ubuntu boot process - the way you can feel it.

[ashrack]

What was the original setting for "readahead" deamon?

Ive disabled it. But now I would like to enable it again. But don't know on which INIT LEVEL

[ShirishAg75]

Hi there,
First of all thanx to give such a guide. Would be reading the all the pages soon & if the questions that I've if not asked would ask. Couldn't just resist saying thank u. That's all. It's a pretty good tool. Much better than BUM, much more thorough or maybe I haven't checked out BUM quite enough. either way it's cool.

[ShirishAg75]

Hi there,
Got an (Internal Error:Failed to initialize HAL) error. Here are my pics. Would try to first use the pictures themselves to see if I can see what I did wrong otherwise maybe u can point out.



Another thing I have a realtek 8139c+ Fast Ethernet card which in turn is connected to a D-Link Modem. As a noob, had taken an advice of an knowledgable friend & did the following config:-

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 - this is this web interface to tweak the settings of the router/modem.
He also made couple of entries in /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 61.1.96.69
nameserver 61.1.96.71 - These are DNS servers of our ISP here
looked at /etc/network/interfaces
& then gave /etc/init.d/networking restart

[ShirishAg75]

Hi there,
Got the Internal Error: HAL failed to initialize. First of all can u clean the 1st post little bit more. At the end when u have put some more services, it has become harder to follow the list. Can u change the order so it follows the order as we see on the screen.
Now for the services that I need to know/confirm more about :-

1. alsa - put them on at 2-5. Your recommendation was off
2. alsa-utils :- put them on S runlevel on.
3. binfmt-support :- This is not there. Should it be or it's specific to one's machine.
4. dns-clean :- on at S runlevel. Do I need this? Refer to the entry above.
5. fetchmail :- Put if off. Do I need it as would be using Thunderbird later.
6. firestart$ :- It's a GUI interface to IPtables. A firewall basically.
7. hdparm :- In /etc/hdparm.conf had put the following line in the script.
hdparm -d1 -X69 -C1 -M192 -A1 -a64 -M16 /dev/hda after
deselecting readahead remove -a64
8. hibernate :- How to know if the service is supported or not. Just run hibernate as

$:- hibenate

or something else.
9. hotplug & hotplug-net :- Both are on S runlevel on. I wanna have the ability to use a thumbdrive or digital camera whenever I want. Other than that no printer, no scanner so is this correct.
10. linux-restricted-modules :- This isn't listed. Although the kernel I'm running is in linux-restricted-modules 2.6.12.10-686. Should this one be listed.
11. module-in$ :- Looking at /etc/modules there it lists
a. lp
b. mousedev
c. psmouse
I have a ps/2 mouse. So what should be done here. Right now its on runlevel S
12. mountvirt$ :- What is this & why it should be enabled. I didn't find any info. about this one. Have enabled it at Runlevel S
13. ppp & ppp-dns :- Don't use dial-up as said before but still await u'r instruction on this one. Right now ppp is on from 2-5 while ppp-dns on runlevel S14.
14. rmlogin :- This one is for remote logins or what. have disabled it.No info til yet.
15. rsync :- Remote synchronization. Is this for when I do an apt-get update or for what? Although have disabled it but would like to know more.
16. ssh :- Secure shell. This AFAIK is used than telnet. I don't know much about telnet itself. So would like to know of some link or something which explains where this is used & then can make up my mind.
17. udev & udev-mtab :- Both are on at runlevel S
18. sysklogd :- I have 3 services by this name. syslogd, syslogd~ & syslog_b$. While syslogd is on from 2-5 the rest are off.
19. x.org-common :- Put in on from 2-5. Saw domino putting at Runlevel S & u said fine to that. Could this be the problem?

How do I checkout my dbus system?

Thanx in advance.

[i3dmaster]

Ive disabled it. But now I would like to enable it again. But don't know on which INIT LEVEL

The default readahead is runlevel S.

[i3dmaster]

Hi there,
Got the Internal Error: HAL failed to initialize. First of all can u clean the 1st post little bit more. At the end when u have put some more services, it has become harder to follow the list. Can u change the order so it follows the order as we see on the screen.
Now for the services that I need to know/confirm more about :-

1. alsa - put them on at 2-5. Your recommendation was off. - See my note in the HowTo
2. alsa-utils :- put them on S runlevel on. - See my note in the HowTo
3. binfmt-support :- This is not there. Should it be or it's specific to one's machine. - Its strange you don't have this service. You probably need to manually install it. The pkg is binfmt-support.
4. dns-clean :- on at S runlevel. Do I need this? Refer to the entry above. - Yes if you use dial up, otherwise, you don't need it.
5. fetchmail :- Put if off. Do I need it as would be using Thunderbird later. - Absolutely not. Nothing related with Thunderbird and fetchmail.
6. firestart$ :- It's a GUI interface to IPtables. A firewall basically. - I don't have it. I'd rather use CLI
7. hdparm :- In /etc/hdparm.conf had put the following line in the script.
hdparm -d1 -X69 -C1 -M192 -A1 -a64 -M16 /dev/hda after
deselecting readahead remove -a64 - That's cool. I did this type of changes too
8. hibernate :- How to know if the service is supported or not. Just run hibernate as

$:- hibenate

or something else. - Most likely depending on the hardware. I would assume that if your laptop supports acpi, then it should support hiernate. Anyway, /etc/hibernate has all the conf and module files that you can take a look.
9. hotplug & hotplug-net :- Both are on S runlevel on. I wanna have the ability to use a thumbdrive or digital camera whenever I want. Other than that no printer, no scanner so is this correct. - Yes, that's the default runlevel
10. linux-restricted-modules :- This isn't listed. Although the kernel I'm running is in linux-restricted-modules 2.6.12.10-686. Should this one be listed. - Another weird one. If you have restricted module installed, you should have it.
11. module-in$ :- Looking at /etc/modules there it lists
a. lp
b. mousedev
c. psmouse
I have a ps/2 mouse. So what should be done here. Right now its on runlevel S - Almost nothing. Leave as it is. BTW, if you want to load any modules during boot time, you may add here.
12. mountvirt$ :- What is this & why it should be enabled. I didn't find any info. about this one. Have enabled it at Runlevel S - Its important. Leave it on. It will mount all virtual fs's, such as sysfs, usbfs, shm, proc, pts, etc... Look at your df and you will see them.
13. ppp & ppp-dns :- Don't use dial-up as said before but still await u'r instruction on this one. Right now ppp is on from 2-5 while ppp-dns on runlevel S14. - Then turn them off. They are services to sync the network settings when dialing up or hanging up.
14. rmlogin :- This one is for remote logins or what. have disabled it.No info til yet. - Yes, if there is a /etc/nologin file in your box, then nobody other than root can get in. This will make sure there isn't such file existing.
15. rsync :- Remote synchronization. Is this for when I do an apt-get update or for what? Although have disabled it but would like to know more. - No, nothing to do with apt. Mainly for sync b/w servers. Quite useful but not for clients.
16. ssh :- Secure shell. This AFAIK is used than telnet. I don't know much about telnet itself. So would like to know of some link or something which explains where this is used & then can make up my mind. - In nowadays Linux, ssh will supercede all telnet services. They all provides remote login ability, but ssh is much much secure than telnet.
17. udev & udev-mtab :- Both are on at runlevel S - Fine.
18. sysklogd :- I have 3 services by this name. syslogd, syslogd~ & syslog_b$. While syslogd is on from 2-5 the rest are off. Fine and you should be able to delete syslogd~ safely since that's just a backup file.
19. x.org-common :- Put in on from 2-5. Saw domino putting at Runlevel S & u said fine to that. Could this be the problem? - No, either way is ok.

How do I checkout my dbus system? - See my note

Thanx in advance.

Thanks. HowTo has been updated. Some of the services were from the others which means my own box doesn't have them, so I am not sure the default runlevel on them. If someone can tell me, I would like to get them updated. For all of those that having HAL failure problem, try this:
1. change acpi-support from S to 2,3,4,5
2. change acpid from S to 2,3,4,5
3. change dbus from S to 2,3,4,5
4. Reboot. Go to the console and do

ps -aef|grep hald

. If hald service is up, then your dbus subsystem is running fine now. Try it.

[AjaxDaKid]

I tried to install and i get an error--
pbrown@plinux:~$ sudo apt-get install sysv-rc-conf
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Package sysv-rc-conf is not available, but is referred to by another package.This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package sysv-rc-conf has no installation candidate

Do you know why?

[i3dmaster]

I tried to install and i get an error--
pbrown@plinux:~$ sudo apt-get install sysv-rc-conf
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Package sysv-rc-conf is not available, but is referred to by another package.This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package sysv-rc-conf has no installation candidate

Do you know why?

You will need to enable your universe and multiverse repos.

[ShirishAg75]

Thanks. HowTo has been updated. Some of the services were from the others which means my own box doesn't have them, so I am not sure the default runlevel on them. If someone can tell me, I would like to get them updated. For all of those that having HAL failure problem, try this:
1. change acpi-support from S to 2,3,4,5
2. change acpid from S to 2,3,4,5
3. change dbus from S to 2,3,4,5
4. Reboot. Go to the console and do

ps -aef|grep hald

. If hald service is up, then your dbus subsystem is running fine now. Try it.

Thanx for the note. Was able to clear up the mess. Also understood small bit about ps. Here's the output from :-
ps -aef|grep hald
hal 6514 1 0 01:04 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/hald
hal 6519 6514 0 01:04 ? 00:00:00 hald-addon-acpi
hal 6527 6514 0 01:04 ? 00:00:02 hald-addon-storage
1000 7812 7705 0 03:49 pts/1 00:00:00 grep hald

Seems to be o.k. I guess. Slightly OT which I'll scrub later but do u/anybody know/s how to show the thumbnails in the same side. I saw in the forum somewhere people able to conserve space by putting thumbnails next to each other.

[domino]

Thanks for adding the default values. This will be handy on my future installs. I'll make I post defaults on my desktop after I wipe the entire drive and re-install.