Slashdot Mirror
Boot Process Visualization
zigam writes "The time needed to boot desktop Linux systems is becoming an issue. That's why I recently took the challenge posted by Red Hat's Owen Taylor on the Fedora developers list and came up with a tool for visualization of the boot process. It collects performance data during the boot up and then renders an SVG or PNG performance chart. It immediately helped Red Hat developers solve some issues and I have since received boot charts from other GNU/Linux developers as well. Solaris kernel developers reported success in improving their boot process too." Update: 12/15 20:04 GMT by T : Sorry, someone decided your time was worth wasting; no more mirrored bootchart.
I reboot every 497 days.
(* IMHO.. If I'm wrong.. I'm sure you'll let me know..)
feh. stuff.
until hibernate features work correctly anyway... and when X locks up and doesn't let you ctrl+alt+f# to another vterm/tty (only had that happen a few times, but it does happen) and you don't have another computer handy to ssh in and fix it...
and if you have a loud computer near the bed...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
I sedond the motion, he builds Linux tools but host his work on an IIS server, mod the original post up.
I know I'm going to get troll, flamebait, or redundant, or all three for saying this, but...
/. you're going to get hammered. Why the fuck is this funny?
weren't the "your web server can't handle the slashdot load" jokes funny the first 10 billion times they were told? Why the fuck do you people still laugh at that worn out bullshit?
Yes, if you're linked to from a busy site like
And no, I have never been the victim of a slashdotting, I'm just sick to fuck of the first 100 comments on every story being "look at that, the web server burnt up, huh huh huh *drool* *slobber*".
The problem with Linux's boot process is that things have to load sequentially using the System V init program. They are given a number and then the init program loads them in that order.
A much better solution would be to say that for each service that needs to be started which services must be started before it and to provide a priority for each service. The boot loader could then use this information to start processes in parallel giving priorities as needed. This would avoid the need to load everything in a predifined order, there would be no running out of numbers, it would not require cooperation to come up with a boot order number and it would allow the user to get to their desktop sooner (does the user really need the ssh daemon running before his desktop is displayed for example?) Of course on a server sshd might be given a higher priority and come up sooner than the desktop.
The system V init program is a relic from the past .
I can think of a number of examples where this would fail but on the average desktop I don't think this would be much of a problem. Servers on the otherhand have to have certain processes started for others to start correctly. MIMEDefang and Sendmail for example. Sendmail and OpenLDAP. PgSQL and OpenLDAP. All the various NFS goodies and any server processes that require something off one of the NFS-mounted volumes. Still I can think of dozens that can and should be started in parallel. I can't think of any ill-effects of starting a number of processes that come to mind in simultaneously. I'll have to give that a try sometime. Maybe the init process should have a Next Generation version that allows you to specify what is absolutely required by a process to start correctly. init-ng can then decide what it can start in parallel based on that. Sounds like a project to me. :-)
The problem isn't the boot process being slow, the problem is with redhat's strategy.
Putting together lame config utils, in place of doumentaion will never work, and ignoring community opinoin while making a standard base is just childish.
Their version of linux boots slow because their config utils suck. Slackware linux still boots fine, so does arch, and yOPER.
The problem this boot vizualization intends to fix isn't a legit problem, it's just a symptom of poor choices made by RH.
Mode me down: after all, RH = King of Linux (grumble...)
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
# First of all, if you run Linux, you're not booting much.
/.ing should be drug into the street and shot for being an idiot. Twice. /.ed your right on that one pal. Yeah. Sure.
Maybe some people chose to turn of their box when
they are not at home or when they are sleeping. Maybe some people want to save a little bit of electricty if they can.
This is the problem with the linux zelots. Someone points out somthing that is annoying and should be fixed and people rush to say how this is a non issue, then they go on to say how this is actually better than the way windows does it.
People who run IIS and then subject it to a
Yeah because IIS is the only webserver that can be
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Still, it's a nice thing to experiment with for people who run Linux in situations where reboots are common, laptops for instance. It's also useful if you are running something like Nessus as a daemon which takes an *age* to initialise itself and obviously has no dependencies. A better solution would be to have an additional prefix on certain init scripts - "P" for "parallel" - to tell INIT that they can safely be started in the background, something that a couple of commercial Unicies do.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The first two comments in a row I read were saying how "My linux never crashes, I never reboot, etc etc". That's great. You have to keep in mind that the average /. reader is not the average computer user!
Most people turn off their computer when they are not using it, and actually turn it on when they need it. For the average computer user, boot times mean quite a bit more since they see it more. Don't be ignorant and think that just because it means little to you, it is unimportant to improve.
No, you're not booting much. My computer rarely crashes, but I still turn the computer off when I'm not using it -- it's noisy, and produces a lot of heat.
Boot time doesn't have to be an arduous wait. Yes, on out-of-the-box distros it can be incredible, but I blame the distro, not Linux.
Sure, maybe it's the distro and not Linux, but that's missing the point. The idea with this tool is to find ways to improve out-of-the-box distro boot time. The guy isn't knocking the Linux kernel for long boot times, he's trying to improve boot times on typical installs.
If you choose to not fiddle, then you choose to have boot times that are increasing.
That's a strange perspective... if I choose not to fiddle, then do I choose to have an insecure system? Or a slow one? Granted, maybe I could make my system slightly more secure, or slightly faster, by detailed tweaking, but that's no excuse for making inefficient and insecure default settings. It's not reasonable to say "Well, you obviously don't care about boot time if you aren't willing to work on it yourself, so I'll just choose the simplest and least efficient configuration possible," when there are definite steps that distros can take to improve the situation.
People who run IIS and then subject it to a /.ing should be drug into the street and shot for being an idiot.
Alright, I'm with you on this one ;)
I am the man with no sig!
Some people thus complain about the bootup time. ... Personally, I don't see the big deal.
I want a fast Linux boot just to shut up the Win XP users at my work that like to say they boot Windows much faster than I boot my Linux.
There are 10 types of people in the world... those that understand binary and those that don't.
200 MB is peanuts for modern disks. Takes them about five seconds to read it sequentially.
However, a *lot* of time is wasted doing disk seeks while booting. A few things can be done to stop wasting that time:
Also, sometimes utterly useless scripts are run. SuSE for example runs a script at every boot to seek *.rpmnew and *.rpmsave files in /etc. The output from this script is either hidden by the bootsplash image or scrolls off screen rapidly.
Some daemons could start after the login prompt is shown. This actually doesn't really speed up booting, but it sure makes it feel faster. For example: wait to 60 *after* the boot process is completed to start up daemons like cron, atd, cups, etc.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
# First of all, if you run Linux, you're not booting much. What...rebooting maybe once a month?
/.ing should be drug into the street and shot for being an idiot. T
/.ing are running IIS from, what I've seen. Ever see Slate or MSN go down when /. links to them?
Some of us shut our computers off. Not every linux PC is a 24/7 server. People own laptops, shut down desktops when not in use, etc. Plus theres linux' ever-growing embedded segment. Your TiVo never gets shut off? How important is boot-time to a device like TiVo or Zaurus?
# Boot time doesn't have to be an arduous wait. Yes, on out-of-the-box distros it can be incredible, but I blame the distro, not Linux.
Yes, distros are poorly configured, and the userbase is largely stupid. Noone talks about runlevels anymore. Put "basic stuff you need to get the user going" on a lower runlevel, and "more advanced gitchy bullshit like AIM etc" on a higher runlevel. Most linux distros behave by default the way a spyware infected win98 box does, making the user wait while it starts umpteen zillion fringe services.
# If you choose to not fiddle, then you choose to have boot times that are increasing. It takes time to autoprobe everything correctly and get it set up if you're too lazy to do it yourself. Windows does it from the perspective of 'throw everything in there and take up gadzillions of RAM'. Linux says, 'I'll autosetup everything but still keep you lean'. You pay for what you get, folks.
Pure "M$ sucks rolF!" bullshit from the clueless. Windows runs a microkernel, Linux runs a monolithic kernel. They work differently. Windows loads the drivers it knows it needs (the installed ones) at boot time, linux pages the crap in and out of the kernel itself.
This is the quickest part of the boot, really. Delays come when you have dhcpcd timing out while looking for a DHCP server that doesn't exist but yet for some reason runs by default even if you have a statically configured address. Or your waiting for privoxy to load and parse its blacklists, or for squid to primp and preen its caches, etc..
# People who run IIS and then subject it to a
Most sites that stand up to a
It has more to do with being able to afford bandwidth than some magical uberneat0 perl script you found on efnet.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Last time i rebooted my linux machine was 25 days ago(updated kernel from 2.4.18). Prior to that it had an uptime of 179 days. Not sure I care a whole lot about boot speed since i do it so infrequently. And honestly if your constantly rebooting and starting your linux machine something is wrong. I would however like to see my OS X machine boot faster...
Here's why ... sshd, cron, and apache are vital to what I do. I don't want to sit there wondering if the reason I can't ssh in or access my site is because the machine is still booting or because of some problem with config. Plus, starting services during boot adds to your diagnostic toolkit and stability.
Yeah. My desire to cut my electric bill in half is "stupid." My desire to increase my energy efficiency is "stupid." Attempting to be environmentally responsible is "stupid."
Unless you need your computer to be running 24/7, leaving it on is a tremendous waste of energy, and I think it's unethical. You're an ass.
Running Windows doesn't prevent one from running Apache.. I've never understood these people who choose to use the limited version of IIS instead of spending 5 minutes to set up Apache. It's not that hard, guys.
This is faulty logic. This is like saying "Since I can't do everything, I'm going to do nothing". That's the kind of piss-poor logic which unfortunately is contributing significantly to the current dismissive attitudes toward environmental protection. Sigh...
A strong argument to counter yours would be the simple "Well, I may not be perfect, but at least I'm better than you".
Your source seems rather ambiguous. Sure, more respondents said to turn it off each day than said it would be harmful, but it wasn't overwhelming, and none of them have any data to back it up.
I've seen PCs run for five years straight, with no problems. And I've had so many PCs fail when I power them on. It seems like power cycling sucks, to me. That said, I turn my PCs off to save power, especially here in NY it's pretty expensive.
My Freakin Blog
Did you do any research into the relative amounts of energy used in constructing different washers? Think of a $1k front loader vs. a $400 top loader. That extra $600 either (1) is pure profit margin, or (2) pays for more complicated construction. (1) is unlikely in a competative market. (2) means it is likely more energy is used constructing the fancy washer.