The 1-Second Linux Boot

An anonymous reader writes "Less than one second Linux boot! This video shows an OMAP3530 capturing video data from a camera and rendering it to an LCD display — the video appears on the LCD display in less than a second from reset."

Comments

The Register also has the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Complete with a video:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/14/montavista_boasts_1sec_linux_boot/

Re:The Register also has the story.

[somenickname]

I find it disturbing that you have to sit through a 2:30 minute powerpoint presentation accompanied by 1980s porn music in order to see the 1 second boot time. For those looking for just the boot time, it occurs between 1:05 and 1:06 seconds in the video.

Ok... I'll take it

[Foredecker]

Ok, so that is interesting, but only just... This isnt desktop Linux so Im not sure why you are saying "eat that".

The OS is DMAed directly into system memory. Ok, thats kind of spiffy. That means its been "pre-loaded" which is already located.

Let me put this in perspective. Back in the mid 90s I worked at AMD. On the ÉlanSC520 system on a chip (133mhz 486 class):

• Booting of Windows CE, QNX, Psos, VXworks and other real time operating systems to a running state (like these guys) was measured in 100s of milliseconds.
• Even better, the SC520 supported Execute in Place (XIP) - FLASH was directly conntected and had a controlerl off the CPUs cache - it was fast. This let the OS and applicatoins run right out of flash from reset - no "booting" at all. Systems could easily initialize in 10s of MS and be fully running - with graphics in a few 100ms. This included a running network stack. Pretty spiffy for the old school.
• There was a company that was doing this with an early version of Linux back then too. Their company name started with an R - but I cannot remember the rest. I think someone bought them. This was fast too.

So, this really isnt that spectacular - cool yes, ground breaking no.

-Foredecker

Boot times

[fm6]

I just bought a cheap digital TV that takes almost 5 seconds to boot. Sad.

Already done faster...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing really new. In fact, they boot slower on a faster processor than earlier acheivments. This is mostly an ad for MontaVista.

See http://elinux.org/Main_Page for a lot more information om bootup.

I think the record is about 200ms by Sony.

Re:Why not do this for desktop OSs?

[evilviper]

What I've never quite understood is why most operating systems boot every time like it's the first time.

Because you told it to do so. If you didn't want it to reboot, you should have suspended or hibernated the system instead.

Really, all of that work can be done in milliseconds, not minutes. Operating systems should just read the ~100MB "ready for use" image from a nice contiguous section of the disk, write it straight into memory, and then do a quick sanity check for changed hardware.

You've reinvented Hibernate mode, with it's existing limitations, and more mistakes you've added... Anyone who's used hibernate know it mostly works, but some devices need to be more fully initialized (like your video card) and starting to use it when it's in a different state than it last was, is a sure recipe for disaster. Despite claims to the contrary, I'd say S3 Suspend is easier to get working CORRECTLY, than Hibernate, and with power requirements less indistinguishable from the "off" load, and boot times of <2 seconds, S3 is far better all around.

I continue to use this old PC (Socket-A MSI Mobo) as my desktop because S3 Suspend mode works (almost) perfectly with FreeBSD-6.x. The ability sit down at my PC, hit the power button, and have all my apps open where I left them (not just the minimal OS up and running) is incredibly valuable. It's a real shame so few people have had the opportunity to experience it. In addition, it's great to be able to just get up and walk away from my computer at any time, for any reason without giving it a second thought... because in 10 minutes it'll be using no power, and when I come back, it'll be right where I left it. Never mind the implications for a UPS-powered system, like a system left right where it was when you last used it, which can be powered from the smallest battery for hundreds of hours, easily.