This is far from a new idea or concept. Many other distros are currently working on backgrounding items like netwaork / dhcp/ and other daemons during bootup, while also manipulating the boot order or events to provide what “feels” like a faster boot time.
One problem is simply one of perception. If any of you run a server and only have ssh access to the server, the computer “feels” like it come up quick due to when the networking and ssh daemons are fired off. It is only later when ftp/ apache/ etc run. SO to people waiting on the web site to come back up it “feels” slower than the guy who simply ssh ins.
Another problem is poor thinking.
I have multiple seagate sata 2 (with the jumper off so I actually get 300) high end drives, only two gigs of ram, and an older amd 2200 dual core cpu.
My computer boots in under 40 seconds.
Why is this? Some of it has to due with partitioning. Every linux distro I use (including suse) has lousy partitioning thinking as default. I understand this is for simplicity and for people to have the least amount of issues. But the problem is it relates to the same type of thinking that windows uses.
Simple techniques like splitting /tmp /var /usr/ srv/ into their own partitions help immensely, but the key (in every OS) is to separate the swap from the OS / Programs and two understand how the physical drive operates.
I have a 320 GB drive split for SUSE 11 and a 620GB drive split with swap and /home on the drive.
By partitioning the OS drive with /boot then /usr then /var from the outside of the drive in you will be placing the executable files on the fastest section of the drive, followed by their “workspace”, etc.
Sadly, my quadcore with 10 sata2 drives, 4 gigs of matched dual channel ram, etc has to wait for any distro of linux (though I am seriously warming up to suse) as I have decided that I will have to wait until the next round of releases of distros as they are not quite ready for x38,x48,or x58 motherboards, but should be by the end of 2008.
Last concern to consider before tweaking startup / running daemons (whats with bluetooth always set on for by default? most people don’t even use it) Is when you share a drive with multiple OS’s.
Typically windows goes first on a drive (the fastest part I remind you), then people put linux further in on the drive(slower). They notice windows is slower than it should be as it is always trying to cache / index everything, including partitions it can’t read but knows is there, which in turn slows it down even worse (I know, turn off the indexing service which is useless anyway).
The point of this post is simple: do your job installing Suse better than the default layout and you will immediately begin reaping the speed benefits of it.
Purchase Seagate drives which utilize the perpendicular technology which is also faster than traditional tech niches. Make sure you get a .11 or later drive which removes old technology which slows down and heats up the drives. These drives are approaching the speed of raptors due to some speed comparisons found at major hardware sites.
Once you have this hardware side figured out, you will be in a fantastic position to boot in under 20 seconds, once the devs move more in that direction.
Now you are ready to start disabling bluetooth and other daemons which are unnecessary, but don’t expect a huge jump from this. Linux has a wonderful way of keeping these services so small they almost amount to nothing.
The slowest part of the bootup is typically networking.
Try running a static ip and not using dhcpd.
Just some random quick thoughts from an old timer.
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