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Intel Slashes Computer Startup Times
An anonymous reader writes "At Intel's Developer Forum in Taiwan, Intel introduced a new Non-volatile caching technology called 'Robson'." The new Robson cache technology allows computers to start up almost immediately and load programs much faster. Intel declined to comment on the specifics of how the technology works only saying that 'More information will be revealed later'.
Hmm... I hope this doesnt require big changes to computer architecture...
you're booting too often
God Fucking Damnit
While cute, that's not entirely accurate. A well-maintained WinXP installation with antivirus installed still boots in the 30 second range on a P4 with a decent amount of RAM. It's the extra stuff that can really slow it down. (OpenOffice or MS Office, taskbar goodies, etc.)
Just like a really good Gentoo installation can boot up very quickly, but it can take awhile to go through the process if it isn't so well-optimized. Out-of-the-box on a dual boot P4, it's been my experience that WinXP boots faster than out-of-the-box Linux. (But I'm not enough of a linux guru to trim it down.) -- Paul
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
Score:4 Interesting.. yet you've said absolutely, postively nothing. Infact it's like Nike announcing they've made a new tennis sneaker and then someone asking. Will any of your employed sponsors wear it? I need to set my filters to filter this moderation crack. No offense to you obviously or the moderators who should put it down for a while.
A very fast boot might make emulation less important. Need to run a Windows program? Boot into Windows in a few seconds and run it. Need a system optimized for gaming? You can have it in a few seconds. This could be very useful...
Ah, but once you get into GNOME, your system is up. Running. Finished. When you're in Windows, after you login you're still loading services. That's how Windows seems fast: it throws up a login screen before it's done loading. Linux doesn't do that.
word.
This isn't a load time problem. It's a load crap problem.
"Loading and verifying WebBuy.api" (does anyone ever use WebBuy, Adobe's DRM system for PDF documents?)
"Checking for updates" (Adobe might have changed the format of PDF again.)
Loading ad content for toolbar. (Sigh.)
And then all the crap that's being downloaded has to be scanned for viruses. It's all that junk that's the problem.
Of course, OpenOffice isn't all that great on launch time either. And no, loading it at boot time isn't the answer.
Isn't there a lifespan on NAND flash memory in terms of read/write. I'm wondering how they have dealt with this. I realize the amount of read/writes required is quite high, but this application is far beyond your typical memory key or camera situation in terms of activity.
--- I've completed diagnosis of your problem and can classify it as a YOYO...You're On Your Own
My XP laptop boots in a time that seems pefectly fine to me, dosen't bother me at all.
What bothers me is the login time. The *worst* thing being that even when the desktop and taskbar appear, there is still another 30 seconds before the machine is usable.
This seems like a big usability problem to me - I don't think it should be there until it is ready, otherwise the user gets very frustrated trying to click on a button that just wont play while the hard drive continues to thrash around.
Also, I think that 30 seconds is a bit lond to load a profile...
Both computers are running a similar load of software at boot. The PC boots with Palm Desktop, Rainlender, and a web server (Abyss) while the Mac boots with Quicksilver and a web server (Apache). Other than that, everything else is pretty standard--audio drivers, video drivers, tablet drivers, and so on. Most of these things are present on both computers. The Mac is a month or two old, the PC hasn't been formatted in two years or so.
Everything timed at home with a stopwatch.
First up--the amount of time it takes from pushing the power button until you have a usable login screen.
Mac--139 seconds
PC--38 seconds
Next--the amount of time it takes from entering your password until you have an idle workspace (on Windows, this was when things stopped loading in the system tray, on OSX this was when the Finder menu appeared completely).
Mac--50 seconds
PC--9 seconds
So, complete boot time (plus whatever time it takes to enter a username and/or password)...
Mac--189 seconds
PC--47 seconds
Finally--the amount of time from the time you click "shutdown" until your computer is powered off.
Mac--53 seconds
PC--11 seconds
So, the time it takes to do a complete reboot...
Mac--242 seconds
PC--58 seconds
Instant-on would be fantastic if it could recover from crashes. There's nothing more frustrating than waiting three minutes for my laptop to boot.
And "quick boot" won't help. The reason you are booting too often is because the OS you use is buggy and unstable, probably the one with an "insane" goal of 30 days uptime that currently has to be booted daily.
You also suffer from a single screen GUI, so you can't easily work on more than one thing at a time.
My laptop six year old laptop stays up longer than that. I take it down to get around buggy bios which sometimes won't work the vga out when I need to give a presentation. It goes to sleep when I close the lid and it wakes up when I open it, sometimes days later. My work is where I left it, on one of eighteen Enlightenment virtual desktops.
What's Intel got to match what I've already got? A copy of XP in the BIOS? No thanks, Intel, you can keep the next generation of boot pain to yourself.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If your fastest machine takes longer than 30-60 seconds to boot you need to either get some better hardware or hand in your geek card. Most machines I build anymore takes less than 60 seconds to boot anymore. Only thing that ever slows down the boot time is extra controler cards that have to get information like drive sizes on boot.
That's only one of the many things that Windows does to boot quicker. There's even a background deamon that optimizes drive layout for quick booting during idle times.
It's pure sour grapes. An XP desktop is not hindered because something is starting in the background. Linux doesn't do this stuff because the people who put money into development are looking at the server market.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Isn't this (from the users' point of view) almost the same thing as software suspend? I reboot/power off my Mac only when a new security update comes out, the sleep/wake up is almost instant. On Windows or Linux the software suspend is not as quick, but seems fast enough for me.
Maybe some server machines could make use of the quick boot... but then again, the article says the machine does the starting procedure in advance, before it shuts down, so that there are no savings in the reboot/start again cycle--just the majority of the work is shifted to the "shutdown" phase?
meanwhile, for digital cable users, our tv's have slowed down.
eBayDig 1s a typo saerch engien
For me, this sounds like a company trying to prevent customers from going elsewhere soon. Announce early, release late if at all, keep customers. It's not that we didn't see this before. Is anybody else known to work on something like that?
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
Yes but does it work with Linux?
After all, we have only a vague idea of how this thing works. It could well require some kind of OS support.
Now obviously we don't know the answer to that until Intel decides to squirt out another press release at some point in the future. But in the mean time there may be some people on Slashdot who have some specialist knowledge of this type of thing. Maybe they will join the discussion and provide some insightful opinions or even some informative answers.
Well, its like this...
I have electrical heating and every watt my computer spews out is a watt less for me to warm up with central heating. As long as the computers dont generate more heat than i have to supply from my electrical furnice its not a loss for either the planet nor the bill.
I suppose you ride your bicycle to work and never drive by car or take the bus? If you do, you have done worse for the nature in a couple of miles than a computer does in its lifetime.
HTTP/1.1 400
It's not the advances in hardware that makes computers slower, it's the software which is growing out of proportions. There is no need to go back to the VIC, we 'only' have to put that old OS on modern hardware; If we put amiga os on modern hardware it will boot in 2 seconds instead of the 10? seconds on original hardware. So, don't be afraid of the dual-Opteron, it won't make things slower. Just don't update software, especially the OS.
I'm still trying to figure out why the hell this matters. Between the coffee breaks, smoke breaks, stupid forwarded emails, and other crap that goes on, who gives a crap if the pc boots up faster? It isn't going to improve productivity any.
And then there is all this talk about how much electricity it it going to save, which in turn saves the environment, etc.... Bullshit! If people were so damned worried about pollution and electricity why in the hell would you buy a computer? How much electricity is used and pollutants generated by ONE PC or laptop? How many of these pc's end up in landfills or "recycled", which costs us more in natural resources half the time to accomplish?
Go outside. Breath a little. Walk a mile. That the booting time on a computer is such a big freaking deal is beyond comprehension.
--ngoy