Hey fellow Linux enthusiasts,

I'm quite a Linux noob here (have some very basic knowledge only; started dabbling). So in my quest for a distro to move to from Windows, I looked at various distros. Tried Debian 9.9.1 on a live USB (2.0; pretty old flash drive) to see how it is and it was booting up in about 60 seconds. After the recent release of Debian 10 Buster I tried it too and it takes 2-2:15 minutes till the desktop appears!! That more than twice difference is big. I can't remember the RAM usage of 9.9.1 (~300-350 GB for LXDE) but for Buster LXQT it is 365 MB and for LXDE 372 MB. That's quite high considering both DEs are considered light. Is this normal? Is Buster more bloated than Stretch? If yes, is the high-ish RAM usage related to that, owing to more processes running out of the box in the background? If I understand correctly, any OS always boots slower when run live off a USB (especially a 2.0) compared when it is installed on HDD.

As a corollary, is there a relation between how heavy a distribution is and how secure it is? For example, Debian seems to be a heavyweight OS so is it more secure out of the box cos of this? Similarly as Trisquel (an excellent distro, both MATE and Mini version) uses pretty low RAM (235 MB and 155 MB respectively on my laptop in USB live mode). Does that mean that since Trisquel may be running lesser processes, hence the low RAM usage, it is also less secure as a secure environment would require certain security-related processes to be running?

I understand that one thread should be used to discuss only one topic, so if I should make a separate thread for the second paragraph above, lemme know admins/moderators. In my understanding it's just a little related thing so I felt I could ask it in the same thread. A separate thread could just be unnecessary.

Cheers,

Debian has this if curious



/var/log/boot

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Debian is whatever one wants. IT can be a CLI only distro running happily on low end hardware with almost no security, to a heavyweight desktop with everything and the kitchen sink fully encrypted with multiple redundant security measures.

As far as ram usage, most modern desktops will adjust their ram usage to the available ram. So boot the same desktop on a system with 2 GB, 4 GB, and 8 GB ram, and it will use more ram at idle with the 8 GB than with the other 2, while 4 GB will still use more at idle than 2 GB. My Debian Plasma desktop used about 600-800 MB ram at idle. I upgraded from 8 GB to 16 GB, making no other changes, and the next boot it started using 1-1.1 GB ram idle.

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Thank you. I understand that a Linux OS becomes whatever the user wishes it to be. Users can set it up as they wish. So does that mean that Trisquel with its low ram usage will, out of the box, be lesser secure (cos of the way it comes OOTB)than say Debian out of the box cos Debian uses higher RAM? Along the same lines, increasing security on Trisquel will result in it using higher RAM idle or not?

Also, does an OS tried when booted live off a USB perform slower than when it is installed on HDD?

That I can't say, partially since I know nothing about Trisquel (other than having heard it mentioned before), and partially because I have never done a "default" install of Debian since Sarge (3.1) was current. I do strictly netinstalls and build my system from there, so the "default" state I can't really speak to.

a 100% increase in boot time probably means that there is a problem somewhere.
You should investigate.

Regarding boot times:
If you are/have been dualbooting, it may be that your Debian /etc/fstab has an incorrect UUID for your swap partition. This happens to me sometimes when I install another distro and the installer "updates" the UUID for the swap partition. Do a sudo blkid and compare the UUID for the swap partition against what you see in your fstab. if they are different, change the fstab value to match the blkid reported value. Doing so removes long boot and shutdown times for me.

The 'live' version of Debian is not the full-fat version.
The live version does not have persistence (i.e. you can't save your modifications on the OS).
The live version is meant to acquaint yourself with the OS to see if you like it. Afterwards, you install the FULL version of Debian and this is much larger in storage space than the 'live' version.

2 minutes from when?
From when you boot your computer? From when you select Debian from the GRUB menu?

Either way 2 mins is too long.
After a fresh install of Debian, you then have to tailor it to your hardware and decide if your /etc/apt/sources.list has main, main+contrib, or main+contrib+non-free. This depends on your hardware.

Debian is not too easy to install. But once you sort out the simple problems after install - you will enjoy your supercool OS.

Please show the output of your /etc/apt/sources.list.

You seem to have an installation issue where your OS needs to be tweaked so it runs properly.
After you've done that - you can start making judgements about the OS.

Yes, please use your corollary for a different thread.
Presently, you need Debian running optimally on your hardware so you can enjoy the benefits of one of the most respected and best-maintained Linux distros.
After that we can talk about... stuff.

1 members found this post helpful.

It's about 2 minutes from the point I select Debian from the GRUB menu.

I used on terminal and got this -

Perhaps it is this long cos I am trying it live and this time would decrease if I install it on my HDD. I did intend to try the OS and hence trying live off USB. If there is nothing concrete that can be said about this right now, I'll just install Debian Buster on my laptop and see how it works. If there are issues, I'll try to troubleshoot based on solutions on the web. If issues still persist, I'll just use another distro.

From what I gather after trying many distros on my laptop and some OSes taking abnormally long to boot (some even longer than Debian Buster), it seems that not all Linux distros work the same for any given machine, despite all of them being technically Linux. That there are some Linux distros that are just better suited for a given machine and others aren't. If this is the case then I have no idea why this might be as I don't see (or know of) any reason why it should work like this. Anybody throwing some light on this for me would be appreciated.

Cheers

I have been trying it live off USB. Thanks for the answer though. Perhaps it could be of help to me if I have an issue of the nature you mentioned, in the future. In fact, I will be making this laptop a dual-boot. Cheers

Try downloading an ubuntu live USB and try that. The Debian live environments have never been all that fantastic IMO (and I'm a Debian fan), and so I generally avoid them and use Fedora or Ubuntu if I need to run live. Trying a live USB that I know usually performs pretty well would rule out the image just being a slow/poor design when live.

1 members found this post helpful.

That is unfeasibly long so there is something wrong with booting the debian OS on your machine.

Your deb-src repository shouldn't be 'hashed out'. Try un-hashing it.

If there is already an OS on your laptop - you can create a multi-boot system. This way you keep your old OS as well as having a new debian OS.
You'll need to create a new partition with minimum 20GB free space. You can do this while you go through the debian install wizard.
However your HDD will need to have 20GB free space in the first place. So if your old OS on your laptop is using ALL the HDD, then you'll have to reduce the partition size your old OS is using.
That's if you want a multi-boot laptop.

If you have any linux issues - this forum is here to help out.
That's what happened to me when I had debian install problems - far more complicated than yours!

The Linux distros should work out of the box.

1. Which 'live' debian version are you using?

2. Are you using a USB? Are you using a multi-boot installer?

3. What CPU and HDD are you using?

4. Have you changed your BIOS/UEFI to boot from USB first?

That should not be the case.
But you're better off with an Intel CPU if you want Debian.
I'm running Debian with an AMD cpu - and it's fine.

Installing a new Linux distro will inevitably come with teething problems - but be patient and you'll get a very good new OS.

Same problem. I use Debian Live, after switching from version 9 to 10, the loading speed increased by 2 times!

• debian-live-9.11.0-amd64-xfce.iso — 22 seconds
• debian-live-10.1.0-amd64-xfce.iso — 45 seconds
  
• debian-live-9.11.0-amd64-gnome.iso — 25 seconds
• debian-live-10.1.0-amd64-gnome.iso — 40 seconds

I measured the time many times. From pressing Enter on the first item on GRUB menu to full load desktop. Same USB flash drive and port.

I tried to:

• Re-download and write image (and other interfaces like gnome);
• another flash drive;
• another USB-port (including 2.0);

Nothing helped
Hardware: SSD (UEFI), i5-3570, GTX 660, 8 Gb RAM