I set up my new Debian system as an alternative to my Win XP...

I'm completly new to linux and I want to gradually switch to KDE or GNOME (didn't decide yet) but there is one thing I fid extremly disturbing:

Linux takes about 3 to 4 times longer to boot compared to Windows and it feels like ages until the Desktop is usable although it should be faster (at least I think so) on my 2,5 ghz machine.

Watching the boot process mainly two things disturbed me:
First there's exim as far as I found out it's a smpt and pop server but I realy don't need stuff like that while it might be neccesary for local eMails I wonder if there isn't a "lighter" app avaliable which neccesitates a shorter time durnig startup

Further there's this AppleTalk service - I don't have an Apple computer attached to the network and in near future I'm not planning to do so

How and should I disable these processes?
How can I speedup the startup process (I strongly doubt I'm the first one to experience these "problems")?

Thanks or your time...

Install the application "sysv-rc-conf". It's an application to manage the services that start in each runlevel (the '/etc/rc.*' directories).

I would keep exim for the time being until you've found a lighter app. Exim is necessary for local mails (which can be quite convenient when things don't work the way they should). Shut down all the services you don't need (for example, appletalk, or apache when you're not running a webserver), this will speed up the boot-process significantly.

Another thing that might speed up the boot-process is recompiling the kernel. Remove everything you don't need from the configuration file (if you're not sure, compile stuff as a module instead of compiling it directly into the kernel) and compile the kernel. There are a lot of tutorials on how to do this. Debian has its own way for kernel compilation, so do a search on that.

A third thing that might speed things up is disabling the 'discovery' service (you can do this with sysv-rc-conf if I'm not mistaking). Discovery is an application which can auto-detect hardware and load the right kernel module. You actually don't need this. When you know what kind of hardware you have, you can compile the drivers directly into the kernel or you can compile them as modules. When you compile them as modules it is necessary to load them using the '/etc/modules' file (again, there is a lot of information on the web regarding module loading).

Good luck.

there is an easy to use bootup manager "BUM"

http://www.marzocca.net/linux/bum.html

see what service you dont need and disable it

I'd recommend installing "rcconf". As root do

and then

From there you can disable all services you don't need and I think it's a bit easier to handle than sysv-rc-conf.

If you'r new to linux and hesitate to compile your custom kernel you could install a kernel image that was build for your kind of CPU. For example if you have an AMD Athlon/Duron you can install the appropriate image with

This could speed up boot-time a bit. Hope this helps!