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theskunk 04-30-2005 02:00 AM

initial load looks like a pacman trap and takes forever no matter what kernel
 
okay, so my initial load of linux right after i hit enter from lilo takes about 10 seconds before i see flying text. it looks like a trap has been set for pacman or something. this is what it looks like:

Loading linux-2.6.11.7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
<insert flying text here for 20 seconds>

Login:



The first part where the dots are takes about 14 seconds to get through, and just pisses me off. the total boot time for my machine is about 45 seconds from power button to login. it is a dell 700m laptop running 1024mb ddr333, pm 1.6ghz, and intel chipset. i cannot for the life of me figure out why it would be doing this. i have tried kernels 2.2, 2.4, and now finally 2.6 with no avail. i have also tried to look up on google what the problem is, again, no help (also not entirely sure what im searching for). the bios has been flashed to A03 which is the most current. currently im using 2.6.11.7 and its just the same. if anyone at all has any ideas on this please let me know.

Thanks,
-Rob

__J 04-30-2005 02:09 AM

is your problem the dots, the flying text, or the 14 seconds?

Shade 04-30-2005 04:29 AM

edit lilo.conf to include this option
Code:

compact
run 'lilo'
reboot.

enjoy

--Shade

theskunk 04-30-2005 07:13 AM

^you da man, thanks! that has me down to about a 15 second boot time now. :D

theskunk 04-30-2005 07:16 AM

however, just for my own benefit, what exactly is it doing during that stage? and how important is it? i mean, it cant be THAT important if they include an option to skip it... but im curious now.

Shade 04-30-2005 07:26 AM

I'm not really sure. I think it's basically just loading the kernel image into memory. I don't know what 'compact' does to shorten the time that takes.

I will look into it.

--Shade

mdarby 04-30-2005 08:09 AM

AFAIK the '....' is the kernel being uncompressed and loaded into memory.

Shade 04-30-2005 11:10 AM

Right... But then what does 'compact' do to make that step unnecessary?

--Shade

Shade 04-30-2005 11:18 AM

'man lilo' is the answer, as always:
Quote:

-c Enable map compaction. This will merge read
requests from adjacent sectors. Speeds up the boot_
ing (especially from floppy)
--Shade

masonm 04-30-2005 11:21 AM

I was a bit curious about the compact option myself and what it does. The best info I could locate is this:
# Enables map compaction:
# Tries to merge
read requests for adjacent sectors into a single
# read request. This
drastically reduces load time and keeps the map
# smaller. Using COMPACT is
especially recommended when booting from a
# floppy disk.
COMPACT

Apparently, if this info is correct, it accelerates disk reading by reading more than one sector at a time.

Shade 04-30-2005 11:23 AM

Well it works great from hard disc, too!

--Shade


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