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

[GoA]

Here's my opinion. I had disabled some services through BUM which is easier method. With this thread I stopped few more services and the result was that I didn't have no sound (hotkey is needed for that, using regular computer). After fixing sound everything worked but the speed difference was so minimal with modern computer that the whole thing was quite a useless. I don't actually feel any difference with or wothout using the bum to disable services. Using athlon 2800+ and 1 gig of memory with sata hd.

[i3dmaster]

Here's my opinion. I had disabled some services through BUM which is easier method. With this thread I stopped few more services and the result was that I didn't have no sound (hotkey is needed for that, using regular computer). After fixing sound everything worked but the speed difference was so minimal with modern computer that the whole thing was quite a useless. I don't actually feel any difference with or wothout using the bum to disable services. Using athlon 2800+ and 1 gig of memory with sata hd.

It may be a stupid question but what's BUM? Anyway, you should know there is always more than one way to do things in Linux, so I am glad you are satisfied with BUM, but knowing more of each daemon and what they are doing wouldn't be a bad thing all at. And I am pretty sure some will get a dramatic difference and some don't after adjusting it cause you might have already disabled most of the services that you don't need. I didn't say this will benefit for everyone.

[GoA]

Bum is boot-up-manager. You can find a lot of information about it from here by using search. Actually, it's developing forum is in here. And like I said, I don't notice the difference with all the services on or most of them shutdown. Because they require so little power with modern computers. Of course with older ones this can effect a lot on the performance.

link to bum: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/forumdis...sprune=30&f=75

[Caboto]

The first time i tried this howto, my sound didn't work anymore. Even if i turn alsa on. So i tried to turn on some other things, but it seems i put 'em to the wrong runlevel. My PC crashed everytime the x server started.
Happily i've got a backup from my /etc folder. This time I just turned off the things, which i was sure of, that i don't need 'em. Now it all works out.

But i would suggest before turning something completly off, write down what runlevel they are in.

And I've always wondered how I can modify the shutdown sequence. It tries to shut down things, which aren't even there anymore. This don't really reduce the shutdown-time (at least i guess so), but it would be nice to know and it would look a little bit nicer as when there are tons of red "failed".


Nevertheless, i always wanted to know what things are in the boot sequence. Thanks for your information!

[Sionide]

Regardless of bootup speed gains, it seems worthwhile to get rid of any services you won't ever use. Thanks for this..

[i3dmaster]

The first time i tried this howto, my sound didn't work anymore. Even if i turn alsa on. So i tried to turn on some other things, but it seems i put 'em to the wrong runlevel. My PC crashed everytime the x server started.
Happily i've got a backup from my /etc folder. This time I just turned off the things, which i was sure of, that i don't need 'em. Now it all works out.

But i would suggest before turning something completly off, write down what runlevel they are in.

And I've always wondered how I can modify the shutdown sequence. It tries to shut down things, which aren't even there anymore. This don't really reduce the shutdown-time (at least i guess so), but it would be nice to know and it would look a little bit nicer as when there are tons of red "failed".


Nevertheless, i always wanted to know what things are in the boot sequence. Thanks for your information!

Thanks for your feedback! The shutdown part is coming soon and its easier than configuring bootup processes.

[i3dmaster]

Regardless of bootup speed gains, it seems worthwhile to get rid of any services you won't ever use. Thanks for this..

Yes indeed! Knowing what you need and what you don't is always better and safer.

[adamb10]

A regular Ubuntu system boots in about 44 seconds to the logins screen for me on a Athlon XP 2100. After using this Howto, I feel it chopped 5 seconds off the boot time.

Good Work.

PS Is there a way to speed up the network part in the boot? It's the slowest for me.

[GoldBuggie]

Really nice guide...I love the tool you recommended to use. I used the tool BUM(boot-up-mgr) before but I can't turn everything off and it isn't nearly as flexible. Thank you.

About readahead...the project is called readahead-list and it preloads files into the page cache to accelerate program loading. The files it caches are stored in /etc/readahead/readahead.

Maybe experimenting with it can make firefox load faster hmmm...something to check into for me I think.

Anyway...thx again for a nicely written guide. I like it cause it tweaks the existing system to your needs instead of replacing it with something new.

[i3dmaster]

A regular Ubuntu system boots in about 44 seconds to the logins screen for me on a Athlon XP 2100. After using this Howto, I feel it chopped 5 seconds off the boot time.

Good Work.

PS Is there a way to speed up the network part in the boot? It's the slowest for me.

The way I changed was not let the hotplug system to detect my pcmcia card and activate the network but change it to auto from the /etc/network/interfaces file. You will see on the file there is a portion to mapping hotplug devices.. I commented that out and add my ath0 after the "auto lo", so its "auto lo ath0". Also, I changed the pcmcia service start runlevel from 2,3,4,5 to S, so it loads it first and then networking script loads my network configuration. Its faster than use the hotplug subsystem. If you don't use pcmcia and have an internal ethernet card, you don't even need to bother opening that service.