Hi I have browsed through the thread regarding my main gripe about linux (its slow bootup time) and the reason why I decided to unisntall it. I'm wondering how people have reduced the time it takes to bootup, I hear that you need to disable any modules whihc you dont need and a recompile of the kernel (how does recompiling achieve this out of interest?)

I use the computer to:
watch my tv tuner
play music and dvd/divx video
type short letters
download using utorrent etc.

Does anyone have recommendations of big modules which I can live without and make the slow boot up (normally 3mins in my 1.9ghz athlon ) more bareable?

Thanks in advance. If anyone knows a post which is particulary relevant, please let me know. Have tried my best to look for something relavent

You need to disable services that you don't need. In Mandriva, you can run, MCC -> System -> Services and disable the services you do not want to run. There is a good description about what each service does, which is good because you don't want to disable important services.

On my older machine (athlon 1 gig), the boot up time is not as slow as 3 mins, which makes me wonder whether there is some other problem causing the slow boot up. From my experience using various Linux distros, Suse and Mandriva have the slowest boot times and the fastest are Arch, Slack and Gentoo.

Hmmm, I've tried two of the slowest then lol. In your opinion, which of the faster booting distros is mandriva-esque and easy to use for someone whos still learning linux?

From the list I posted above, none are really as newbie friendly as Suse and Mandriva but a newbie willing to learn can use any of them although there could be a big learning curve. What I would urge you to do is keep one distro as your main OS and then tinker with others until you find one that you really like and want to keep.

Cool, I am freeing up space on my harddrive to give mandriva 2006 another chance. I shall look out for where it is especially slow in booting up and will post back later. May help in finding why my system boots so slowly. Have no other gripes about linux other than that.

Thanks for now reddazz. Good to see your prompt replies again

Hmmmz, for some reason it loads lightening quick now, 1min 10 sec from cold boot!

Mandriva 2006 runs super fast compared to 10.0 SE (sorry if i'm behind the times lol)

I'm satisfied... now to fix my webcam....

I'm glad it works better for you. 3 minutes was a bit too long, so there must have been some sort of problem with your first installation.

Thanks Reddazz

Even my laptop doesn't take anywhere near that long to boot. You can probably improve the times a bit by using the Mandriva Control Centre->System->Services thing to disable services you don't need (eg. NFS if you don't use it). 2007 is supposed to use a parallel init to speed up boot times: http://qa.mandriva.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/Pinit