Which distro is faastest in booting ?

[saurya_s]

Hi all
I run mandrake 9.2 on the machine below. my machine boots in 2.5min. i haven't got any unnecessary daemons running.
Right I am looking for short booting time for average Linux user level distros , not the geeks version like Debian, Slakware etc- not reached that stage yet!!
Right recompiling kernel etc didn't help or it is the problem with mdk?
When I tried Suse I never noticed booting time. What is your experience guys?
Thanks for sharing
SS

[Hayl]

this is entirely dependant on the hardware, the kernel configuration, and what daemons are starting.

it has nothing to do with "distro" besides the fact that certain ones seem to start a lot of daemons by default and therefore make the boot slower.

[Fryguy8]

some distros certainly do other things besides load the kernel and daemons though.

The fastest booting distro I've ever seen is my LFS install I had a few months back. It would go from bios to console "login:" prompt in ~10seconds.

[mdwatts]

This fairly recent thread also asks and answers the same question.

[ph34r]

LFS or Gentoo would get me to a ?DM login (gui) in about 30 seconds... Slack was about 45.

Of course, any distro will boot mega fast if you pass the init=/bin/bash option to lilo.

[saurya_s]

mine is 2.5min from switching on the computer to running KDE with autologin enabled. Right this is similar to Andycrofts case in the thread which is mentioned!!
Right the machine does show what all it is doing while it is booting, can I somehow save the message and see it later to see what all i don't need.
SS

[saurya_s]

Originally posted by ph34r
LFS or Gentoo would get me to a ?DM login (gui) in about 30 seconds... Slack was about 45.

Of course, any distro will boot mega fast if you pass the init=/bin/bash option to lilo.

What does this mean 'Of course, any distro will boot mega fast if you pass the init=/bin/bash option to lilo.'

And how does one go about doing this? Does it have any adverse effect on the machine?
SS

[ph34r]

dmesg > startup_stuff.txt

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by saurya_s
What does this mean 'Of course, any distro will boot mega fast if you pass the init=/bin/bash option to lilo.'

And how does one go about doing this? Does it have any adverse effect on the machine?
SS

You will end up with a shell (bash) and nothing else. No X/KDE/Gnome etc.

[Hayl]

Originally posted by Fryguy8
some distros certainly do other things besides load the kernel and daemons though.

possibly hotplug scripts, or autodetect scripts but any of that can be turned off.

[saurya_s]

Originally posted by Hayl
possibly hotplug scripts, or autodetect scripts but any of that can be turned off.

I think so, it does some type of hardware detection which I don't require at each boot. So i guess i can diable them but can I invoke it later when I add new device and ask it to detect?
Right what I also use is USB flash drive, so if i diable them will it stop mounting them as well?
SS

[UID500]

freebsd 5.2, 30secs without ntp sync.

about 35 with ntp sync.

[lugoteehalt]

not the geeks version like Debian, Slakware etc- not reached that stage yet!!

Eh? I use Debian and am incompetent rather than geek.

Using Debian Potato - this starts fast, but bit ancient.

[JamminJoeyB]

Throwing in my $.02

I had a PIII 733 booting Evil Entity Linux that got me to a gui in about 30 seconds. Slackware on the same machine was about the same. Mandy with everything turned off that could be was well over a min. I never timed anything, but I know faster boot times when I see them. I got rid of Mandrake because RPM dependicies were killing me.

My current system PIV 2.0gig loads nicely, but I haven't rebooted since I upgraded to 2.4.22 kernel in slackware 9.1.

Besides, unless you are patching/installing a kernel there really isn't a need to boot or reboot. Ok well if you are dual booting to Bill's OS.

[AndrewLubinus89]

Slack boots about 30-45 seconds (to bash, no *dm) and freebsd takes about 15-20 to get to bash. Rh with gdm takes about a minute and mandrake takes a bit longer. Windows takes over a minute as well. I like slack the best though.