Speeding up boot on Debian Squeeze
 

Hello everyone

I'm trying to speed up my boot. I have installed the last liquorix kernel (3.7.0) and tried some tricks on the internet, but I'd like to speed it up even more (if possible). I don't know what can I take out more without breaking my system.

I have attached my bootchart

Thank you in advance!

Let me guess you are running a default install yes?
Just because you got this or that kernel doesn't mean it is going to be faster, actually it may be fatter.
If you really want your Debian to be faster then start with minimal install, no desktop no tools no nothing just the bare base system, disable installation of suggested and recommended packages, next install the core of xserver, and of course the xserver driver for you video card as start point to have video working, note when you select one of them, all of them will be activate the whole xserver suite, you don't need all that, just the following:
with aptitude is possible to select/deselect the packages,
install a terminal, i suggest rxvt-unicode-lite, you can run it as deamon saving memory, another hint: when you select xserver packages it will also select xterm terminal, but it is bloated. Unselect it.
If you preffer even lighter terminals here a list of some.
Select also the X environment and login screen, well you want faster yes? Then pick a lightweight window manager and here you can have an idea about it.
About loging screen i recommend Slim it is really light and fast.

Having that you will land in a very clean X environment with a terminal only, and then you can install the other programs from there with apt-get or aptitude. Here a list of lightweight applications.

About the kernel the only real way to get it really good is compiling it yourself, generic kernels are fat, it does have a lot things that your machine don't need, bring many features anable that you probably will never use, give a serious thought about compiling your own kernel, you want faster yes?

Here a link about speeding up debian, it is a bit old but there still some useful tips.

Regards

Thank you for your answer.

Your solution might work, but it's too radical. After a few days working on it, I finally left a Debian with Gnome, from where I deleted a lot of packages.

On the other hand, I'll have to try compiling my own kernel one day, it sounds good, but a bit difficult.

Thanks

That is how is possible to get super light systems with Debian, see for yourself those old machines with that kind of setup:
Cyrix 250Mhz, 96Mb RAM, 30Gb hd, 32Mb video card
Pentiun II 700Mhz, 256Mb RAM, 40Gb hd, integrated 32Mb video card
Those have minimal/custom install and custom kernels.

Not really, try Linux From Scratch to see what is radical, and yet some people will say there are way more radical ways.
It isn't that hard you just have to start!! Here a howto: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=36525

Regards