WOW
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| viator Nov 03, 2009 4:34 PM EDT |
Finally an app that objectively logs boot times REAL boot times!. And i see that Ubuntu booted almost twice as fast as win7 :P |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 04, 2009 4:29 PM EDT |
Windows has always "cheated" by delivering an un-usable desktop relatively quickly, but still loading and configuring and doing tons of stuff in the background thus basically using up system resources until the boot was really finished. For me, using KDE3.5, I have konsole, konqueror and kmail launch automatically, so my desktop does something of the same sort as Windows does, showing the GUI then waiting for stuff to load. But when KDM comes up for a login, the _system_ is completely finished. The disk light is off and it is 100% ready for my use. _I_ choose to have specific applications auto-start, and can choose for it not to just by selecting one of the dozen or so other window managers I have installed (Debian). Windows? Choice? Nothing to compare. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 04, 2009 4:44 PM EDT |
Not to mention that in Windows land there are a metric ton of cr@pware applications that configure themselves to start at login time. Look at the average Windows user's taskbar. They have 20-30 icons in the status area. Often more. IM software (MSN), volume managers (every USB manufacturer seems to have their own). Virus scanner. Firewall. AdWare scanner. Management apps for the previous three. Quickloaders for half a dozen applications (e.g. Office). CD burners. E-mail notifiers. Etcetera, etcetera. In Linux land, virtually nothing is added automatically to your session startup script. |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 04, 2009 9:33 PM EDT |
My wife got a new work laptop with Win7 on it. I went to look, and my first reaction was "By Cromm!" because of the seemingly endless line of icons in her "system tray". |
| jezuch Nov 05, 2009 3:13 AM EDT |
Quoting:But when KDM comes up for a login, the _system_ is completely finished. Not so in the new dependency-based init replacements. They see that kdm doesn't strictly depend on a bunch of stuff and launches it before them, so you still have some grinding in the background while you login. It's all based on the theory that apparent performance (desktop comes up sooner) is more important than real performance. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 4:09 AM EDT |
@jezuch: KDm staring early is just a side effect of dependency based booting. If you compare the charts of SysVinit versus e.g. Upstart you can see that dependency based booting really is faster. You need to time the time from boot to init finishing. Not the time from boot to the login screen appearing. It's something different from Windows where they make the login screen appear earlier but the actual startup sequence takes longer. |
| hkwint Nov 05, 2009 5:22 AM EDT |
Quoting:You need to time the time from boot to init finishing. Then the question would be: Is init finished before KDM login? |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 6:36 AM EDT |
As jezuch said: Apparently not with dependency based booting. But that doesn't batter. It's not like the boot only seems faster like it is on Windows. It really is faster. |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 05, 2009 10:00 AM EDT |
> you can see that dependency based booting really is faster. I was able to get improvement by turning on init "concurrency". Debian being as "conservative" as it is, the default is to not do the init sequence in either the dependency or concurrency methods, just one at a time as logically as the init team sees logic. I can't say where KDM falls in the dependency-based sequence, since I didn't try it. These are the notes I took, which packages, etc: # aptitude install dash # dpkg-reconfigure dash # let it take over the /bin/sh link # aptitude install insserv # dpkg-reconfigure insserv # echo "CONCURRENCY=shell" >> /etc/default/rcS These are just notes, not direct commands. I don't use aptitude, and when the package is installed by hand like that you don't need to "reconfigure" it, and the "CONCURRENCY=" line is already in rcS, you just need to edit it. I did the first and last, dash and concurrency, and could perceive the improvement. The people in the Debian-user list who provided the above notes said that doing both was quite an improvement, but I just haven't felt the urgency to do it. After all, rebooting a Linux system is done only on power-up. Not like rebooting MS-Win, which is done on power up, on registry changes, on software updates, on a whim, when the moon is in the 7th house, and any time Jupiter aligns with Mars. |
| hkwint Nov 05, 2009 1:44 PM EDT |
Indeed, "dependency based booting" isn't what makes the boot process faster. Not as long as it starts the same services; because then only the order in which the services are started would differ. I can tell because I've been 'dependency based' booting on Linux for five years. What helps - and why upstart is faster (I guess) is because it decides some services don't have to be started at particular moments in certain situations, and because starting the services in parallel. I've been trying this (initng) with Gentoo two years ago, but it didn't work back then. Upstart seems to be what initng was intended to be, and Upstart succeeded. Kudos to Scott. |
| krisum Nov 05, 2009 2:03 PM EDT |
@hkwint
Quoting: because starting the services in parallel.Same thing. This is possible due to dependency based booting in the first place. I believe (and also having seen some bootcharts) that parallel start is what makes this faster e.g. while X is doing its detection etc. then keep the CPU busy, which in turn is possible due to proper dependencies. |
| jezuch Nov 05, 2009 4:12 PM EDT |
Quoting:It's not like the boot only seems faster like it is on Windows. It really is faster. It is, and indeed it doesn't matter that it's doing background stuff while you log in. I only noticed a difference when one time I had to log out of the X session and log in again. Normally I push the button and go make some tea and it's there when I go back :) And I like my desktop up early - otherwise it feels like it's wasting time :) |
| tracyanne Nov 05, 2009 5:37 PM EDT |
I don't think the boot feels faster on Windows, and it certainly didn't appear that way in the video. |
| flufferbeer Nov 05, 2009 9:00 PM EDT |
@tracyanne and Sander_Marechal Yes, I also think the desktop is noticeably quicker. A pretty slick Ubuntu with at least some of the things you've described. A winner! 2c |
| hkwint Nov 06, 2009 5:51 AM EDT |
Quoting:because starting the services in parallel. I tried to explain you can have sequential dependency based booting and it will not be faster than the 'old' system with S01, S02 etc. in rcX.d. So I disagree parallel booting_is the same_ as dependency based booting, they both are independent solutions to different problems. Bootcharts are here (note: These are probably old ones), quite interesting: [url=http://images.google.nl/images?hl=nl&source=hp&q=bootchart initng&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi]http://images.google.nl/images?hl=nl&source=hp&q=bootchart i...[/url] |
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