[SOLVED] Speeding up 32-Bit Linux Mint "Sarah" Boot-up
 

2017-02-03

Ever since I replaced Ubuntu 12.04 with Linux Mint 18 as my MacBook Pro's sole operating system recently, Linux now takes at least 3 minutes to boot up. It used to take Ubuntu 12.04 little time to boot up on the same machine.

I've tried a few fixes such as disabling compiz, replacing the line GRUB_CMDLINE_Linux_Default:'quiet splash' with GRUB_CMDLINE_Linux_Default:'profile' in GRUB and reducing swappiness from 60 to 10, all in vain.

I'll appreciate as usual very much any help from this forum.

2017-02-05 Brief Answer: LVM mode of Linux Mint installation!

Julianvb

My desktop is a Dell XPS Gen 5 with a Pentium 4 extreme edition CPU and maxed out at 4GB ram, it's a beast... at least back in the day I purchased it in August 2005. It takes a couple minutes to boot up Debian testing.

My Christmas present, a MSI GT72 6QD is also a beast with 16GB ram and a quad core processor, it takes 10-15 seconds to get a working desktop with the exact same OS with identical software and everything.

Based on my experiences, Linux is looking like Windows as they progress, as in the need for more resources. And since the average lifetime of a computer is three years (unless it's a Dell XPS Gen 5 in the right hands), keeping the hardware in line with the versions of OSs used typically would reduce the need to ask "why is this OS so slow?", it's not the OS.
EDIT: If you have more than 4GB ram, it's wasted ram with a 32bit system. Lord knows how long it would take to boot a current 32bit Linux OS on my Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop I purchased in August 2005 along with the desktop as it has a Pentium M which is strictly 32bit, I leave that one collecting dust at the moment.

Two questions:
- what do you mean by "boot up" - grub loaded ?, kernel/initramfs loaded ?, init started ? ... something else ?.
- what evidence do you have ?. Try bootchart as a starting point.

julianvb,

Alternatively, you could try a 32 bit version of a lighter distro such as MX Linux or a lightweight one such as antiX-16.1.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/mx-16.html

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150810#antix

Or a lightweight distro like LXLE.

3 minutes is long, even for an older system.
however, without additional info, post #2 is the only valid answer.

Hi, Everyone,

Thank you all very much for your great advice.

Two of my desktop computers were made by HP in 2004 and they run 32-bit Linux Mint 17.1 and 32-bit linux Mint 18 respectively. I am very happy with their performance in terms of boot-up time, speed and reliability. They feature 2GB of RAM and an 80GB HDD. A few months ago I acquired a couple of inexpensive 2012 mini-ITX computers which came with 32-bit Linux Mint 18 pre-installed, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. I am very much impressed with their swift and reliable performance. In light of these 32-bit machines' perfomance, I am inclined to feel that my LM18 MAcBook Pro's slow startup problem is not related to the fact that it is running a 32-bit version of Linux Mint.

I would like to point out that I have inadvertently installed Linux Mint 18 in LVM mode on the Mac without knowing anything about this option and I am now too lazy to re-install it the regular way. The purpose of my post is to find out why the machine booted up (32-bit) Ubuntu 12.04 so much faster than Linux Mint 18.

Julianvb



inux

syq00,
By boot-up, I mean the time measured between power-up or the start of a reboot and the time the operating system is ready to process requests from the computer user. I just count the time between these two events to arrive at an approximate estimate. Strangely the /var/log/bootchart/ directory repeatedly appears empty.

Thank you very much.

Juianvb

that's encryption, right?
i'm not versed in this, but from what little experience i have with it, it can take really, really long to decript a larger file (on my older 32bit netbook), let alone a whole hard disk partition.
if you encrypted the whole install, i suggest to try again and encrypt only /home, maybe it helps.
if that doesn't help either, you must forgo disk encryption for the sake of convenience.

oh, i forgot, you are too lazy to reinstall. well, nevermind then.

+1 :shrug:

If it was "easy" it wouldn't be worth it.

ondoho,
Thank you very much for your enlightening revelation. I should have looked up LVM (Logical Volume Manager) before posting my question! Since LVM requires much more work, the longer boot-up time makes sense. Actually I can put up with it as I use this machine only when I visit my relative on the West coast.

Julianvb

Julianvb:
Couple of references I recommend for LinuxMint and "friends". :)
https://help.ubuntu.com/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/
http://tinyurl.com/easylinuxtips

Crunchy, and easy to chew. ;)

Advice: Defaults.
"Something else" during partitioning is ninja.mode so don't, or bone up. ;)

Habitual,

Many thanks for the useful links.

Julianvb

You're welcome.