Speedup tweaks

yaminator · 03-16-2017, 04:45 PM

I found that if you edit fstab and grub you can decrease bootup times.

Edit fstab
1st line for root ( / ) at the end you should see 1 1 (or maybe 0 1).

Change the last digit to a zero and save.

Next, you need to edit GRUB.

Replace the "quiet splash" with one word "profile".

Reboot twice.

Things should boot up a bit faster.

Also, adding noatime to your /home partition can slightly speed things up a bit more.

example might be (some UUID) /home defaults 1 1
Change it to (some UUID) /home noatime,defaults 1 1

If the numbers following are not 1's then leave them alone and do not change them.

Don't change anything else.

Note: this assumes you are not fooling around with adding, removing, switching hard drives or messing with partitions.

In those events I suggest you do not do the above.

unSpawn · 03-16-2017, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yaminator

Things should boot up a bit faster.

...like loading less services or using hibernation (unless you're in a brown-out-prone area w/o UPS or battery)?

yaminator · 03-16-2017, 06:15 PM

Hibernation can be a problem. Files in use cannot be updated when coming out of hibernation.

It does take a while to come out of hibernation if you have a lot of RAM.

unSpawn · 03-16-2017, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yaminator

Hibernation can be a problem. Files in use cannot be updated when coming out of hibernation.

Never had that problem myself: examples welcome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yaminator

It does take a while to come out of hibernation if you have a lot of RAM.

%define a_lot?

yaminator · 03-16-2017, 06:33 PM

Hibernation is a process whereby whatever you have in RAM is stored to the hard drive and later retrieved in the same state it was in before hibernation. If you have 8gb of active files in ram, it will take a while to save all that to disk. Some people prefer sleep mode for faster access. But even that will have files in use.

If you have something updated while files are in use, they aren't going to be replaced when hibernating or sleeping.

Files in use aren't replaced until reboot. If they were, the system could crash hence files are usually locked while in use. Or loaded into ram.

Try launching firefox. While it is running, go directly into it's folder and make some sort of change (deletion would be a good method of some file it needs).

Even deleting the whole folder while firefox is still running will still show firefox still running.

If you are brave enough, delete your FSTAB file while the computer is running. (not recommended for those who do not know about making a backup of it and how to restore the backup from command line)

The computer will still run until you restart.

Deleting say fstab and hibernating will still allow the computer to resume as if the file was never deleted.

Disclaimer - do the above at your own risk.

yaminator · 03-16-2017, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unSpawn

Never had that problem myself: examples welcome.

%define a_lot?

definition of 'a lot' - more than 'a little' lol

Presumption is 4 or more GB of ram but depends on the system.

For some people 1gb of ram is a lot. Others 32gb is a lot.

Brains · 03-17-2017, 01:25 AM

My MSI GT72 6QD Dominator G laptop currently has 16GB ram.
I don't agree with anything you say yaminator.
It boots Windows 10 and Debian testing in 18 seconds or less, neither of which go into hibernation on shutdown as I disabled this default behavior in Windows, when I close the lid and put it into hibernation, no more than 15 seconds to a usable desktop, (because I wait for the blue tooth mouse to get paired, it could be faster for all I know).
When you look at the specs of this unit, you may be able to figure out why it's so fast.
My advice for you to get things up and running faster is, " upgrade your hardware ", and disable applications checking for updates upon startup, or applications being started automatically.

dugan · 03-17-2017, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yaminator

I found that if you edit fstab and grub you can decrease bootup times.

Edit fstab
1st line for root ( / ) at the end you should see 1 1 (or maybe 0 1).

Change the last digit to a zero and save.

You should probably tell people what that actually does.

pan64 · 03-17-2017, 04:51 AM

see man fstab:

Code:

       The sixth field (fs_passno).
              This  field is used by the fsck(8) program to determine the order in which filesystem checks are done at reboot time.  The root filesystem should be specified with a fs_passno
              of 1, and other filesystems should have a fs_passno of 2.  Filesystems within a drive will be checked sequentially, but filesystems on different drives will be checked at  the
              same  time  to  utilize parallelism available in the hardware.  If the sixth field is not present or zero, a value of zero is returned and fsck will assume that the filesystem
              does not need to be checked.

yaminator · 03-17-2017, 11:05 AM

Thread isn't necessarily meant to be marked as solved. But if mods want it that way then it is fine with me.
Just wanted to post something that can speed up things a bit.

Others can add additional speedup tweaks if desired. May want to keep thread open for a week or two just in case.

yaminator · 03-17-2017, 11:06 AM

Regarding file system checks at reboot - I assume that so long as you have a clean shutdown you shouldn't have any problems.

I did a forced shutdown (left battery out and unplugged power supply cord) and restarted with no apparent ill effects.

pan64 · 03-17-2017, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yaminator

Regarding file system checks at reboot - I assume that so long as you have a clean shutdown you shouldn't have any problems.

I did a forced shutdown (left battery out and unplugged power supply cord) and restarted with no apparent ill effects.

And you will be surprised later when you find "strange" things, unexpected behaviour, missing files, whatever.

yaminator · 03-17-2017, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

And you will be surprised later when you find "strange" things, unexpected behaviour, missing files, whatever.

Not really. I had all that before the tweaks lol

I can always restore the settings or just R/R.

ondoho · 03-17-2017, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

see man fstab:

Code:

       The sixth field (fs_passno).
              This  field is used by the fsck(8) program to determine the order in which filesystem checks are done at reboot time.  The root filesystem should be specified with a fs_passno
              of 1, and other filesystems should have a fs_passno of 2.  Filesystems within a drive will be checked sequentially, but filesystems on different drives will be checked at  the
              same  time  to  utilize parallelism available in the hardware.  If the sixth field is not present or zero, a value of zero is returned and fsck will assume that the filesystem
              does not need to be checked.

so we're just skipping fsck?
which isn't run on every boot anyways, only every 10th or so?

an what's the "profile" boot option doing?

rob.rice · 04-08-2017, 07:27 PM

build a custom kernel with all the device and file system (the ones you use) modules built into the kernel this saves the time it tacks to load the modules
you may need to add a kernel command line to configure the built in modules to your boot loader configuration
with
make localyesconfig
then tune the kernel with
make {your preferred kernel configuration tool}
make all
make install
add the new kernel to your boot loader configuration file as an option for testing
run the boot loader
test it reboot
if it works make it the default

this cut my boot time in half