Button-to-Grub times

[Dotan Cohen]

> Curious about why this matters...

For one thing, bringing attention to the matter may encourage hardware
manufacturers to improve the performance. For another, those looking
to purchase hardware may find the information useful.

Go load up a Lucid beta. They boot lightning fast. The POST and Grub
menu really are the bottlenecks now.


> not that there's anything to be done
> about button to grub times as that's entirely dependent on the
> hardware, and what BIOS/EFI does at startup (whether it registers the
> RAM, or scrubs the ram) and how long it takes any attached PCI devices
> to activate...
>

Even if Ubuntu cannot change those parameters, it would be wise to
know what they are. If a user needs a fast-booting netbook, for
instance, he would be well to know that model FOO is a speedy booter
while BAR is molasses.


> I've had systems that, depending on data scrubbing, could take
> anywhere from 5 minutes to 60 minutes to get to a login (gdm).
>

Getting to GDM is in fact dependant on the OS. But that is not hte
part that I am interested in now.


> FWIW:
>
> Alienware M15x, dmidecode says version A03 and says BIOS vendor is
> Alienware (but it's a Phoenix BIOS, or at least based on one).
>
> Power to Grub: 20 seconds
> Grub to gmd: 32 seconds.
>
> HDD is a 500GB SATA II drive.
>

Thanks. 20 seconds! Ouch!

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://bido.com
http://what-is-what.com

Please CC me if you want to be sure that I read your message. I do not
read all list mail.