Making the Startup Scream
 

I have been using Slackware for quite some time (ok 1 month).
Everywhere I read that Slackware boots 2-3 times faster than other distros.
Could anyone give me pointers on how to increase boot up time? What services are necessary? What is the script which I need to edit?

Specifically I also wanted to ask about Sendmail. During boot up my system waits for quite some time with "Starting Sendmail MTA daemon"
Can I stop this?

To make sendmail not load on boot:
This makes it unexecutable.

Also, disabling hotplug and using udev should increase speed.

Regards,
Ryan

While it is a true statement, some systems (mine included) require hotplug for XWindows to work (video system needs it, or I get the fatal 'No Screens Found' error).

You would be best served by doing a search on this forum for other ideas on what can help your boot times. I myself have found the greatest increase by compiling my kernel with only the options and modules I need.

Good luck.

oh sorry if I screwed up my question,
Actually I wanted to ask was ... "Can I stop it?" meaning wether this will screw up anything else on my box.
Looking at its man page It doesn't seem to me it would. But I am not sure on wether sendmail is used by KMail to send mail.

You can also try stopping the ldconfig at startup process.
Just edit /etc/rc.S (or rc.M, can't remember) and cut out ldconfig sector.

BUT if you do so, after each software install/upgrade you'll have to run #ldconfig manually.

Happy slacking!

Can you explain how to do this using slack 11? I have a general idea on how to do it, but want to make sure that I don't run into any querks that you may have uncovered along the way.

Instead of having to worry about doing that just put it in the shutdown script instead (thats if you ever shutdown/reboot your machine =]). Lets face it, who cares how long the computer takes to shutdown.

This might not be a good idea, especially is a person is using 2.6 kernel, which heavily utilizes hotplug and udev...

IMO, if you want to make yr boot time quicker, I would do the following:

-kill all unwanted processes and services (Apache, MySQL, CUPS, PCMCIA)
-remove any modules not being used by the kernel

That's a really good idea. Unlike Windows, Linux shuts off when you tell it to shut off.

Off topic: My old roommate in college once clicked on shutdown on his laptop in Windows. Then he closed the lid, put it in his backpack, and headed back to our room from class. 10-15 minutes he opened his backpack and both fans were going full speed. He opened up the lid and was greeted with something to the effect of "foobar doesn't want quit. Are you sure you want to continue shutting down? Yes/No." Whenever I turn off my laptop and stick it in my backpack, I know that "shutdown -h now" will always turn it off.

to turning on or off a "services" that comes with slackware's installation, I use pkgtool. No need to chmod anything.

Wouldn't this be because of a missing device node?
I'd suggest booting with udev only and making a list of devices under /dev, and then doing the same with hotplug only. By comparing these lists, maybe you can spot what's missing and create an udev rule?

You don't have to ! Installpkg/upgradepkg does it for you after every package installation or upgrade.
I find the need of manual cache updating only after package removal or direct installation bypassing package tools.

Yes, I could.
But, since it works, I ain't gonna monkey with it.

That's a pity, because people will go on thinking there's something wrong with udev, when maybe there isn't. Anybody else got the same problem who could try?

@ drumz: Add me to that list of putting a Windows laptop into a briefcase when saying shutdown and it never shut down. Only to find it 3 hrs later with the 'end task / wait' dialog box for a hung process. The pc was hot as can be, eveything got messed up. Had to throw it away.

Back to topic:
I found that turning off font cache saved me alot of time on boot up. Tho, I turned that off once I knew the computer was fully loaded and I was not going to add anything for a long time.

re: turning off sendmail. I suppose you could do this, but how does root get mail? I don't find the sendmail causes me any grief on really old hardware I have. Add logwatch to that and it's worth any overhead IMO.

taking out hotplug and going udev was substantially faster for me. wowzers.