SD Card Booting Issues
 

Hi Folks

I am using Lubuntu 20.04 on an Acer 3820TZ laptop, Pentium P6 100, 3GB ram, 320 GB HD, formerly Win 10 until BSD, but now removed. I also have a 32 GB Integral Micro SD card in an adapter on which I have separately installed Lubuntu 20.04.

Booting under Win 10 was not fast but, sadly, Lubuntu 20.04 is not that quick either. The brilliant idea was to install 20.04 onto the card for a super quick boot. Wrong! It boots even slower and also insists on having the device and principal user names as Lubuntu (i.e. lubuntu@lubuntu).

Questions:
1. Am I wasting my time thinking that an SD card boot would be quicker?
2. If it ought to be quicker, what possible solution(s) should I investigate?
3. How do I get the SD card Host and Host names files to edit and save permanently (Only worth the effort if the answer to 1 is 'No')

Many thanks

Pete

1. Probably, it depends on how the adapter is connected i.e. what data bus i.e. PCI or USB etc. The type of card my affect boot speed but not enough information to say either way.

2. Use an internal hard drive if possible.

3. It appears your just running a live version. There are ways to create a persistent live version or just install it as a regular distribution.

Speed of your card - running live - both could be a cause of the slowness.

Try installing it to your card, to see if will be fast enough for you.

Hi Folks

Thanks for your speedy responses.

Some data.

The SD card is by Integral Micro and claims up to 90MB/s data transfer rate. The pc see the card as a USB device.

Boot times: Hard disc best 1 min 22 sec. SD card best (when file checking is stopped by very fast Ctrl C) 1 min 23 sec. Much longer if file checking is allowed.

Please could you explain what you mean by 'running live'. That is not a term I have encountered before.

Regards

Pete

I did not pay attention but the latest lubuntu version is 19.10, Ubuntu is 20.04

How did you create or install Ubuntu to the SD card?

The ISO file that you downloaded basically runs from memory which is why it is called a live version. Anything changed within the scope of the operating system i.e configuration files/ installed programs etc are lost when turned off. However, it is possible to add persistent memory.

The default username and hostname of the live system is lubuntu.

Try installing the system to the SD card but you need another bootable device.

As far as boot times with out knowing anything about the hard drive it self, ATA bus speed or USB type it is difficult to make a direct comparison. IMHO it isn't all that bad for the age of the computer.

I forgot to mention that ome distributions the downloaded ISO file is just the installer but most these days are live systems. There typically is an icon on the desktop or in the menu that starts the actual installer.

Hi

Thanks for the response and the explanation of live running.

I downloaded the ISO to the laptop and then installed 20.04 from the Laptop to the SD card, so I presume that I have basically the same system on both the HD and the SD, except that I have customised the HD version and added various useful (to me) apps.

It is beginning to look as if the 'super quick SD card' idea is a waste of effort if the OS is all held in RAM. I imagine that the only difference might be loading apps from the drive, unless they all get loaded up at boot as well. I think the SD card is going to become an insurance policy for next time Microsoft does a killer update and this time destroys my desktop PC which still runs Win10.

Regards

Pete

SD card via USB does not equate to an SSD SATA or even a spinning SATA drive. I believe the technology is different and connectivity/data bus bandwidth or speed via PC is very different.

To set a system's host name (although there may be variance between systems)
ie) [sudo | su -] hostename fastboot

Hi

Thanks for that information. What I need to do if I am to 'tweek' the SD card is to get a clear idea of the directory structure that Lubuntu 20.04 creates for an install. I have had a little browse with the file manager and not been too pleased with what I have found, i.e. I was expecting a nice simple structure. With that editing Hosts, etc will be 'easy'. Anyway, the job is not pressing and more a case of 'shall I do the crossword or fiddle with the SD card?'

Thank everybody for your input.

Regards

Pete

Linux Filesystem Hierarchy standard -
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Li...emTreeOverview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesy...archy_Standard

Hi

Many thanks for those two links. I have had a very quick scan and they are just what I need to expand my Linux Education. I suspect that they are going to fall into the category of "Why did I not find/use this a long time ago!"

I suspect that my curiosity will mean that the crossword will get ignored and the SD card exercise will get extended.

Thanks again.

Pete