[SGVLUG] Time to boot getting longer with Debian

[John E. Kreznar]

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David Lawyer <dave at lafn.org> writes:

> I just installed kernel 2.6.15 on my 11-year-old PC and it takes over
> 3 min. to boot. ... I could track down the delays ....

2.6.16 (and maybe 2.6.15 as well?) has a new configuration parameter
PRINTK_TIME described as follows.

	bool "Show timing information on printks"
	help
	  Selecting this option causes timing information to be
	  included in printk output.  This allows you to measure
	  the interval between kernel operations, including bootup
	  operations.  This is useful for identifying long delays
	  in kernel startup.

See linux-source-2.6.16/lib/Kconfig.debug.  While researching this, I
also noticed this comment in linux-source-2.6.16/scripts/show_delta:

   This program parses the output from a set of printk message lines which
   have time data prefixed because the CONFIG_PRINTK_TIME option is set, or
   the kernel command line option "time" is specified. When run with no
   options, the time information is converted to show the time delta between
   each printk line and the next.  When run with the '-b' option, all times
   are relative to a single (base) point in time.

suggesting that kernel command line option "time" might provide more
of the information you're looking for here, even if PRINTK_TIME is not
set.

This came to my attention while configuring a 2.6.16 kernel, something
that I wouldn't have been doing at all but for this SGVLUG thread --
thanks, David!

- -- 
 John E. Kreznar jek at ininx.com 9F1148454619A5F08550 705961A47CC541AFEF13
  Operating a computer with a GUI is like driving a car with
   an animated cartoon in place of the clear front window.

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