I'm trying to cut down on my boot time, is there any way to tell what daemons I have starting at boot, and decide which one's I need and which one's I don't?

Install and run bum. That will give you access to a lot of the information you need. For services that are not familiar or you are unsure of, just google the name and that will fill in the blanks.

When I ran bum I got the error
Suggestions?

use a trial and error methodology. uncheck all the services and reboot the system. if the system does not respond the way u want it then u have unchecked a needed service.

thats how i figured out wats needed in my system.

A cute little bug. Issue the command below as su.
Then run bum again.

# mkdir /var/lib/bum

same error

It's a bug in that version. The workaround I posted works on my box and is posted at DebianBugs. If it won't take for some reason on your installation then you will either have to bump up to the SID version (which is where the bug got fixed), or you can use another program called sysv-rc-conf, which performs the same function, but only in a terminal session. Bum is a little nicer if you are not familiar with configuring services because it has a good GUI.

# apt-get install sysv-rc-conf

I don't think it's possible to make debian boot very fast (without doing too much work). Arch and slackware linux boot way faster by default.

Here are some tips though:
http://users.skynet.be/six/gpure/tec...bian.html#3.24

I do also think Debian takes a little while longer to boot than some other distros, and I have gone to the extent before of disabling some of the default services which did make a difference. However, this was just me tweaking things and trying to learn how things work. The speed never really was a bother since Debian always booted to a desktop in good time, and it would be silly to spend hours just trying to save a few seconds.

Debian takes double as much time to boot then arch does. That might be no problem if your computer runs fast and boots arch in 15s and debian in 30s. But on a slow computer the difference can be in minutes :/. I think debian really needs to get cleaned up.

so it's pretty well pointless? switching to fluxbox helped alot(getting into a desktop-wise), but if disabling some services and spending that much time will not help that much, I may just not bother.

Just

disable unnecessary services with sysvconfig (or sysv-rc-conf)

make /bin/sh a symlink to /bin/dash

do lsmod and put those modules in /etc/modules (the ones in bottom of list in lsmod have to be at the top in /etc/modules) and then disable hotplug at boot

If you use dhcp putting in a static ip makes it a bit faster to start network.

A careful kernel recompile helps too (but it didn't do much for me so I just use a default kernel).

I don't think you should do any more then that.
I tried initng which should reduce boot time a lot but it didn't even boot and requires to much fiddling with config files to get it working (if it even can with debian) at this point I think.

I would look at what is starting and make sure you actually need all the running services.

I have found netatalk (appletalk) running on a number of Debian boxes when it isn't needed, and it takes along time for that particular service to start during boot. apt-get remove netatalk fixed that one.

Reviewing your running services isn't a waste of time, it's something every sysadmin should take the time to do, for optimization, and security reasons.

Editing the init scripts will then be the only way to increase bootup speed. (after disabling services, kernel compile, etc)

Actually there's a new init system called runit in debian.

JUst apt-get install runit runit-init

And then read the docs at /usr/share/doc/runit/ carefully.
And follow the steps.

runit boots the services in parallel, and it's possible to use much simpler scripts then with sysvinit.

grtz
gunnix

OK, I dont' want to edit any init scripts. I'm not that good yet, and I don't wanna screw something up. I'll just let it be. Thanks anyway though