I read in a thread here somewhere that someone had managed to tune linux to boot up in 20 seconds... I was wondering where and how do i do this myself. Im running rh9, please bear in mind im new to linux....
Thank you

Edit your startup scripts in /etc/initd if your using Redhat, I think that is the correct directory now. If not usually there are links in /etc that will point to each runlevel, you will see like /etc/rc.0-rc.6

Redhat probably has enabled several services on startup that you won't need running on your system. You can stop unneccessary services from loading at boot time with Redhat's Service Configuration utility. You should find an icon for it somewhere under your System or Utilities menu. Chapter 14 of the RH 9 User's Guide has the specifics.

If you aren't sure which services you do or don't need, tell us what service are currently enabled and also what functions your machine performs (regular desktop box, web server, FTP server, etc.). The functions you want your machine to perform will determine what services you do need to activate at boot.

Do i just delete the files in that dir?

You'll notice that the filenames of the scripts in initd (and/or the symlinks to them in each rcx.d directory) will begin with "S" or "K". The scripts beginning with S start services/processes and the scripts beginning with K kill services/processes. To keep any given startup script from executing, you don't even have to delete it- simply change the first letter of the script's name to something other than an upper-case "S". Just changing it to a lower-case S will even do the trick. That way, if you ever need to activate the script in the future, you'll easily be able to identify it, and simply change the "s" back to "S" to have it start at boot.

If you want an easy graphical approach Webmin has a list of all processes/services and startup options under System->Boot