simple idea:

make better use of the time during bootup that people are looking at repetitive information (boot up sequences or splash-screens)... some possible alternatives (i'm sure LQ users can find other/better ones):

1. Quote-Of-The-Day during boot up process (when you have time) instead of after login (when you really have more important things to do).

2. Slide-Show (a quick reminder of your co-workers names and faces perhaps?).

3. Web-Content [news, weather, stock quotes, RSS, etc] (if you could bring up networking quick, could be served by another local computer and/or web site).

4. Pre-selected Textual Content (read another page each day of your favorite novel, journal, tutorial, or tip, preloaded the night before).

5. Current To-Do List and/or Schedule loaded from favorite Groupware app. for verification.

6. ...

these are just some ideas for starters but sufficient to communicate the idea. since win is not OS, these alternatives would be unique to OS os'es and a competitive advantage (yes i'm sure windows users would be envious ;-).

this will help bide our time until instantaneous boots...

The umm... disadvantage is increasing the complexity and size (and potential for bugs) of bootloaders. I do think it's a great idea, but a broken bootloader brings a world of headaches.

This would just add processes to the already complex bootup process, hence slowing it even more.
My bootup takes under 1 minute, so I don't think this would be very effecient.

poof*

(sweeps away the ashes ;-)

This would be OK for people who use bootsplash. It could be additional functionality built into bootsplash rather than into the bootloader or boot sequence.

--Ian

ya good idea. could be back-loaded to splash at the end of each session so you would in essence just get a dynamic splash-screen. one that changes each time you boot (or each time you shut-down).