custom kernel will fasten up boot process. compile what you need and leave out rest. good luck lots of options to hit. dont like that spend the money and get a system with pci4 m.2 ssd drive.

I got a amd ryzen 5 5000 with 32gb of ram and 1 pci4 m.2 drive. boot is nothing not debian or slackware. everything loads instantly pretty much as I command. even without custom kernel. now if only I could bring myself to play MW5 with rtx 3060.