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Embedded Linux Achieves One-Second Boot Time
Sam writes "A new goalpost has been set in the race for faster bootup times. MontaVista Software announced (and demonstrated at the Virtual Freescale Technology Forum) a dashboard application going from cold boot to operational in one second flat on their embedded Linux platform. Although this is unlikely to immediately benefit your average Linux user, previous real-time patches have eventually made their way into the main kernel."
I'm surprised that this is news. I remember working a few years ago on booting Linux (also the MontaVista version) in 600 million cycles flat, which for a CPU running at 600 MHz, is exactly one second as well.
You can even still: watch a video of this here
CoreBoot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) will boot a full Linux kernel on a general-purpose machine in 3 seconds. Ok, it's two seconds longer, but it ain't bad.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The video was hard to find on the given links. One of them even had the audacity to ask me to log in to view it. Yeah, as if.
One Second Linux Boot Demonstration (new version)
Also, kudos on the music choice. The wah-wah pedal in the opening music really gives the tech demo that "porn soundtrack" feel I know you were going for.
coding is life
No, it's a 200% increase.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It's 300% of the old boottime, which is a 200% increase.
A DX2, at 266 MHz, in the early 90s? If this is an Intel 486 we're talking about I think you've gotten the numbers a bit wrong. Mine ran at 33 MHz.
FACT NAZI Observation: The 486DX came in 20, 25, 33 or if you were unlucky 50Mhz variants. Consequently a clock doubled (DX2) 486 was not capable of anything close to 266Mhz. That wasn't achieved until the Tillamook-Pentium much later.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
you don't even link to the best page in the universe?
Found it.
Originally posted by 'Mohanky' June 2008:
http://wiki.davincidsp.com/index.php/All_This_For_1_Second_Boot
The thing with an embedded device is that the hardware is known. The boot sequence can skip hardware detection and it can be customized to only deal with what is specifically installed.
The BIOS isn't always the problem... if it takes three seconds for the video card to become usable (fans running, memory initialized, etc), you're not going to get less than a three-second perceived boot time, no matter how fast you make everything else happen. The same goes for other hardware. If they happen in series (or worse, if they have to happen in series), then that can add up - that can be mitigated by the BIOS, of course, but I can see why boot times might get longer.
This is absolutely part of the problem. The power supply needs to turn on its fans and generate stable voltage, then the case fans and mobo power conditioning needs to stabilize. Then you get to touch the BIOS, which probably does a staggered startup of most devices to prevent power supply droop. As stated, all of this hardware then needs to reach a usable state, both mechanically and electrically.
In a car, the power supply is DC to start with, the hardware is smaller and simpler (requiring fewer moving parts to wait for), the BIOS has mostly sensors to startup (If not done within the OS), and the OS needs only to load the basics and a few drivers from ROM. One second startups are common for small embedded systems, including to embedded versions of Linux. Just don't expect it on a desktop.
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