TIP: Improve bootup speed by reprofiling bootup

[Meetloaf13]

Man, I'm envious of all these sweet boot-times.

My boot-time is currently around 70-80s in Ubuntu HH 8.04

Specs:
T7300 C2D
7200RPM 160GB
4GB RAM
Dual-boot Ubuntu 8.04 x64/Vista x64

I boot Vista x64 ~40s...if I can boot Vista in that short amount of time, I know I've gotta be able to get Ubuntu to best it.

I've read through the posts, I tried removing the 'splash' command from the 'menu.lst" but it didn't do anything noticeable.

I've disabled a few things like bluetooth & braille, and a few other programs like Evolution, but I'm stuck here.

I'm much of a linux n00b (I know, I know). But I know enough to tweak with a little help.

Here are two of my bootcharts (first with Splash on, second with it removed from menu.lst.) Why do the bootcharts say ~35s when it takes much longer from grub to load?

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

[Lord Udedenkz]

Two Simple Question,
- This thread has been running 2 years, is it still revelant?
- is it add "profile" to the end or add " profile" to the end (notice the space)
Thank You

[jdong]

Two Simple Question,
- This thread has been running 2 years, is it still revelant?
- is it add "profile" to the end or add " profile" to the end (notice the space)
Thank You

Yes, this information is still relevant -- Ubuntu through Intrepid still uses the readahead-list system to accelerate bootup.

And you must add a space -- "profile" needs to show up as a separate word.

[Meetloaf13]

This tip didn't do anything for me, any clues why?

[jdong]

This tip didn't do anything for me, any clues why?

If you haven't installed any new bootup services since installing the base system, this probably won't have a huge impact. The most beneficial part of this trick (reordering readahead files to match layout of each user's disk) has been incorporated into recent Ubuntu releases based on the tremendous positive feedback here.

[sarah.fauzia]

If you haven't installed any new bootup services since installing the base system, this probably won't have a huge impact. The most beneficial part of this trick (reordering readahead files to match layout of each user's disk) has been incorporated into recent Ubuntu releases based on the tremendous positive feedback here.

So, since I have the latest build of Intrepid, does that mean I still have to go through the procedure, or it is automatic? I have to admit, I have a very fast boot-up...30.5 seconds from the black screen till when my computer is usable. I actually had the big improvement after I installed splashy...

[ShirishAg75]

Hi all,
The profiling helped, but as told by other posters read-ahead is now different.

#!/bin/sh -e
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          readahead
# Required-Start:    
# Required-Stop:
# X-Start-Before:    mountkernfs hostname
# Default-Start:     S
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: init script for readahead
### END INIT INFO

# Check the package is still installed
[ -x /sbin/readahead-list ] || exit 0

# Get LSB functions
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
. /etc/default/rcS


# Remember that any major changes to this script need to also be made to
# readahead-desktop.init

# Remove the boot list to disable this readhead phase
[ -r /etc/readahead/boot ] || exit 0

case "$1" in
    start|restart|force-reload)
    # This can take a while
    if type usplash_write >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        usplash_write "TIMEOUT 360" || true
    fi

    # If "profile" is placed on the kernel command-line we watch the boot
    # sequence and generate new readahead lists, rather than read the lists
    if ! grep -q "profile" /proc/cmdline; then
        log_begin_msg "Reading files needed to boot..."
        if /sbin/start-stop-daemon --start --quiet \
        --pidfile /var/run/readahead-list.bogus \
        --startas /sbin/readahead-list -- -s /etc/readahead/boot; then
        log_end_msg 0
        else
        log_end_msg $?
        fi
    else
        echo 524288 > /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

        log_begin_msg "Preparing to profile boot sequence..."
        if /sbin/start-stop-daemon --start --quiet \
        --pidfile /var/run/readahead-watch.bogus \
        --startas /sbin/readahead-watch -- -o /etc/readahead/boot; then
        log_end_msg 0    
        else
        log_end_msg $? || true
        fi 
    fi

    if type usplash_write >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        usplash_write "TIMEOUT 15" || true
    fi
    ;;
    stop)
    ;;
    *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/readahead {start|stop|restart|force-reload}"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

exit 0

Now its on line 37

 
if /sbin/start-stop-daemon --start --quiet \

So now we need to make this in the background?

[jdong]

       log_begin_msg "Reading files needed to boot..."
        if /sbin/start-stop-daemon --start --quiet \

Close to that invocation of start-stop-daemon. DO NOT background the second one in any case! That will not make for very productive profiling in the future!

[ShirishAg75]

Jon,
Just so I didn't misread you are saying that changing line 37 of /etc/rcS.d/S01readahead

log_begin_msg "Reading files needed to boot..."
        if /sbin/start-stop-daemon --start --quiet \

to

 
log_begin_msg "Reading files needed to boot..."
        if /sbin/start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background \

I am inserting background again and this would improve my performance?

I am confused

[jdong]

Depending on your system, hard drive speeds, NCQ support, amount of disk cache, filesystem, RAID configuration, and other variables, background may be faster, or foreground may be faster. Foreground is currently default. Background was default. There's no way for me to tell you what will work better on your system. Please put a space after background before the \ newline escape.