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Boot Windows Faster, Using Linux

Posted by timothy on from the linux-to-the-rescue dept.

BiOFH writes "TechNewsWorld is reporting that InterVideo has a solution for slow boot times runing Windows XP MCE. 'The new Linux-based InstantOn software -- designed to help Windows XP Media Center Edition PCs boot more quickly -- is aimed at taking advantage of the power of Intel's Pentium processors, not at fixing fragmented hard drives. The software integrates into the computer's BIOS and the operating system.'" According to this article, the software uses a small Linux partition on the user's hard drive. I wonder how BIOSes with hard-wired Microsoft-based DRM would cooperate with this scheme.

16 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. Vaporware! by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesn't make Windows boot faster. It's just a stripped-down version of Linux which of course is going to boot faster because it provides far less functionality. If you want to get to full Windows, you'll have to wait out the remainder of the boot process you interrupted.

    Any CD-based Linux distro can achieve the a similar effect with far more functionality.

    1. Re:Vaporware! by AstroDrabb · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is not pointless. Linux is USED for all the multimedia in the device and not MS Windows. The DVD, TV, FM, etc are all handled by LinDVD. This allows the device to boot really fast when you want it for multimedia purposes. If you want/need to do normal desktop stuff, that is when you boot up full MS Windows.

      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
    2. Re:Vaporware! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not quite. On my machine (1.8Ghz P4) Redhat 9 and Windows XP Professional both take about the same amount of time from power on to CPU idle (ie: waiting for something to do). Windows XP is faster to present a login screen, but the machine is still not useable until quite a while longer after login.

    3. Re:Vaporware! by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 3, Informative

      so turning a computer off doesnt 'save' any energy.

      A computer is hardly an efficient space heater. (An effective one, yes, but mostly because current systems use huge amounts of power.) If you want to save energy, turn off the PC when you're not going to be using it and use the furnace.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    4. Re:Vaporware! by ortholattice · · Score: 4, Informative
      But there is NEVER a reason to shut down a Windows XP computer (if you're not installing anything or changing settings). My computer has been on for 92 days and is still as stable and fast as it was on day 1 (super fast and 100% stable).

      Since you don't install the security updates (which require a reboot) I certainly hope your computer isn't connected to the Internet. Otherwise it's probably been turned into a zombied relay for spammers who are all too happy with your 92 day uptime.

    5. Re:Vaporware! by Rasta+Prefect · · Score: 3, Informative
      But there is NEVER a reason to shut down a Windows XP computer (if you're not installing anything or changing settings).My computer has been on for 92 days and is still as stable and fast as it was on day 1 (super fast and 100% stable).

      You know, when you're not using your computer for long periods of time (say, 92 days) you should shut it off. Needless to say, my experiences with XP's stability have been a bit less sterling than yours. (Generally after a few days it's good and ready for a reboot. If I'm developing, once a day minimum).

      --
      Why?
  2. It doesn't boot windows faster! by spun · · Score: 5, Informative

    It boots Linux faster, offering a choice of several entertainment related programs, as well as the choice to boot windows, which takes as long as usual.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  3. Common sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    What About the old "Don't load programs you don't need to load at startup"? Prefetcher tweakage. (yay for bootvis) Killing ad / spyware, tweaking services? My XP boot fairly quick (if I *enter* out of my 30sec countdown from my Xp bootloader asking me if I want Linux Or windows today.) Who doesn't know that isn't very likely to install a seperate Linux partition just to boot quicker?

  4. It isn't some kind of linux based boot loader... by Valar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Which is what I thought when I read the writeup. It is actually a minimal media-distro designed to boot quickly. To do windows stuff, you still have to wait for windows start time.

    --

    ====
    Crudely Drawn Games
  5. "Entertainment machines" by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative
    A partition on the hard disk houses the Linux software in an area separate from the Windows operating system. The developer claims that with the new software, the boot time is brief -- a mere 10 seconds. When a user turns on the PC, the InstantON software preempts the Windows boot sequence and takes over, quickly loading basic entertainment functions.

    Business Applications

    Moving from the quick-boot entertainment functions into Windows, however, will take users more time than the initial 10-second boot because the InstantON software must hand off the user to the Windows operating system at that point. Still, the company believes that most users inclined to use PCs as entertainment machines in their living rooms are accessing those machines mainly for entertainment-related functions, rather than to run business applications like Microsoft Word or Excel.
    1st step towards seperating 'entertainment centers' from general computers. "Ro foresees a market emerging for computers that don't have conventional operating systems but are used in the living room as entertainment devices, right beside TVs." And since this technology is being marketed towards OEMs, HP and Gateway etc, I can't imagine that it will compromise WINXP Media Center's DRM.
    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  6. why not use hibernation? by techvd · · Score: 3, Informative

    When the PC is hibernated, it comes back up much much faster than a normal boot. Most PC/laptops on market have had support for hibernation for a while. Except when necessary, why not get rid of a complete boot process and just stick to hibernation? It's no Instant On, but a lot better than a complete reboot!

  7. Re:Windows is already faster than linux by bobthemonkey13 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux is a kernel. It takes very little time to boot up (it's done when you see INIT: Version such-and-such booting). On a modern PC, Linux will boot in a few seconds or less. From there, everything is in userland, and boot speed thus depends on what your distro chooses to initialize at startup. So if you're unhappy with bootup times, use a distro that loads less stuff, or cut yours down. For the network thing, I would suspect a failed attempt to get a DHCP lease.

  8. Memory images on disk by digitalhermit · · Score: 3, Informative

    There was a project a while back to take a snapshot of a boot state then load this snapshot directly into memory. Any modern harddrive can move the 40M or so in a few seconds. The sticking points were mainly due to hardware that needed initialization and some OS design issues (beyond my understanding, but had to do with how control is passed to the operating system). If not for these issues, the machine could boot completely in seconds.

    1. Re:Memory images on disk by Jerf · · Score: 3, Informative

      Current hibernation modes would not be able to do that because they end up storing various memory-based file-system caches in the hibernation as well. You do not want those caches to get out of sync with the real contents of the disk; big lossage.

      "So avoid saving those caches...", well there's a reason they are saving them. If you don't save them, you have to first close all open files, and now your "suspension" isn't transparent. So you've opened the door to two "modes" of program starting, "suspended" and "not suspended", or some such other crap. And re-loading the cache with new, valid data on startup takes time, which defeats the point of this in the first place.

      My point is not that there are no solutions to these problems but to try to give a taste of how these things cascade rapidly. OS design is a subtle and tricky work, which only becomes truly apparent once you actually try to sit down and code solutions to these problems.

  9. Too complicated... by ByteSlicer · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you really want to boot Windows XP fast, configure your BIOS to do a suspend to RAM on sleep. When you hibernate XP, the computer will be completely off (except for a tiny current for self-refreshing the DRAMS). From this state, booting will take only about 5s. And all programs you had previously running will still be there. Even music will continue playing where it left off.
    The only drawback is: if you lose power, the DRAMS will be cleared. That could be solved by a UPS or maybe some built-in battery.

    1. Re:Too complicated... by ByteSlicer · · Score: 3, Informative

      I meant 'Standby' instead of 'Hibernate'. Hibernating will write your RAM to disk. It is controlled by the OS instead of by the BIOS. Reading half a GiB worth of RAM back is significantly slower than resuming from suspend to RAM. But in hibernation state the computer is really off, so no risk of losing DRAM content.