Instant-on fast-boot Pupplet ?

Message

hartiberlin · #1 Post by **hartiberlin** » Thu 06 May 2010, 06:07

Hi,
I recently downloaded xPud.org linux and
installed it on my harddrive and
it really is the fastest free linux I have seen lately.

It uses a frugal method with a grub boatloader
and if you install it besides Windows it will
boot from the Grub menu in about 5 to 10 seconds,
depending on your harddrive speed.

So it is really fast.
Unfortunately it still has some bugs with my 2 PCs I tested
it and I don´t know, how to update Firefox, etc..

So is it possible to also have a Puppy version with
such a fast boot time ?

Maybe a modified version of Browserlinux.com
or something simular, which does not load first all
the Files into the RAM disk, but just runs directly
from the harddisk ?

Or is there already any pupplet that is as fast as xPud 0.9.2
and can be used in frugal mode ( installed besides windows xp
or Windows 7 on the same harddrive in a subdirectory in drive C:) ?

Please let me know.

I would basically need a good modern browser like Firefox 3.6.3
with working Flash 10.x or the latest Chrome with working Flash
and a good File editor or manager..

What would be cool would
also be , if the XBMC pet could be installed additionally
for some Media Center playback or
Kaffeine or Mplayer Mediaplayer.

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

nooby · #2 Post by **nooby** » Thu 06 May 2010, 07:26

Hi, I like those things too. Firefox 3.6.3 with flash and fast frugal booting.

But don't get me wrong now. I am not really complaining but sure am curious on if it is a good thing to make ad link in your signature to

moneyworkhome.com make money online

is that not a kind of spam. Is it your own firm? As I said not critical to you but your choice of link. is it really proper?

hartiberlin · #3 Post by **hartiberlin** » Thu 06 May 2010, 08:15

Is there already any pupplet version that is
booting as fast as xPud ?

Sorry, I did not have the time lately to test
all the new puppy versions from over here,
so I am a bit outdated...

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

nooby · #4 Post by **nooby** » Thu 06 May 2010, 10:49

I trust there is not. In one thread rather recently somebody explained why.
I don't remember enough search words to find it again.

jemimah · #5 Post by **jemimah** » Thu 06 May 2010, 13:41

It can be done but you have to use a really limited kernel. It's the probing for hardware that takes the most time.

I've booted Puppeee to Xvesa on an Eee 701 in 10 seconds, but I know exactly how to tweak it to make this happen. It takes some effort.

kattman · #6 Post by **kattman** » Thu 06 May 2010, 23:08

I could be wrong, but i think most of the Xpud scripts are written in Pearl
for speed.
I realy like Xpud, But I wish the had a bigger user base!

hartiberlin · #7 Post by **hartiberlin** » Fri 07 May 2010, 06:06

Why can´t we get something boot as fast as Xpud done with
a pupplet like Browserlinux or simular puppies ?

I really wish someone could post a description how to disable
the copying to RAMdisk for browserlinux and speed up
the boot process.

It is okay to have the RAMDisk for USB stick usage,
but if I want to use my PC via the frugal harddisk
setup, I would really love to have a very fast booting puppy,
so I can just use it via the browser to check
quickly my GoogleMail emails or just edit quickly a file
in a text editor, or something like this,
without having to wait so long for my windowsXP to boot up...

Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.

jemimah · #8 Post by **jemimah** » Fri 07 May 2010, 17:03

Easiest way is to do a full install.

A usb install does not copy to ram by default if you make a save file.

Usually the copy to ram speeds up the boot process or at least doesn't add much because then all subsequent I/O is much faster.

For really fast boot, you need to build a custom kernel. Xpud doesn't have a full kernel either. Their 24MB extra driver package suggests their kernel is quite cutdown. You can try deleting kernel modules you don't need from /lib/modules - that can speed things up.

Switching to Xvesa will speed your boot time too.

hartiberlin · #9 Post by **hartiberlin** » Sat 08 May 2010, 00:18

Please make such a small pupplet and post it .
Many thanks.

Roy · #10 Post by **Roy** » Sat 08 May 2010, 00:59

hartiberlin,

If I understand the physical world correctly, jemimah is saying that the best way to perform an instant-boot scenario is to have the core linux kernel compiled for each machine's specific hardware -- and NOT include any other hardware configurations.

This would require thousands of different distros to work, one for each of the thousands of possible hardware combinations -- a fairly unreasonable request to make of a volunteer developer, I should think. Now, if one were to hire a developer, for livable per-hour wages, then I should think the initial thickness of one's wallet would be the only limit for one specific hardware combination. (A livable wage would thin said wallet very rapidly in any case.)

Is it even possible to do a distro that covers nearly everyone? Well, yes -- and no. A reduced kernel (READ: reduced capability) version does not necessarily meet everyone else's expectations. Notice the things that don't work for you with Xpud. It wasn't initially developed for your specific hardware combination. And the more stuff they add, the slower it will boot.

In the midst of it all, we forget that developers are as human as any other equipment maintainers. Unfortunately, neither group hears very much from their base users unless something has not met expectations or has gone terribly wrong -- at which point the message is one of aggravated complaint rather than praise. Not very motivational.

If I were to pursue this on my own, I would start with Turbopup Xtreme v1.0, ChoicePup431, PULP, or one of the other trimmed-down Puplets (there is also a Browserlinux 362 / 362 'Lite' puplet), use Technosaurus' zdrv-cutter program to remove stuff not associated with my own particular hardware, and follow the tips already given in this thread (use Xvesa instead of Xorg video, for example). It would take some experimentation and work for somebody to do this for themselves, but is within the realm of possibilities.

To be honest, I feel for you. I'm personally about as good at coding as I am with flying -- sans aircraft. But there are things we want and there is a way the real world works. Sadly, they are not always the same. Play around with some of those other puplets to find the one that works on your machine and does what you need it to do. Experiment with it and do the work. You will end up with something very personalized that meets your expectations. And you can be proud of that.

-Roy

jemimah · #11 Post by **jemimah** » Sat 08 May 2010, 01:10

hartiberlin wrote:Please make such a small pupplet and post it .
Many thanks.

I have, it's called Puppeee - but you need an Eeepc to run it. [Also there's BrowserLinux Eee Edition with the same kernel].

To get the zdrv cutter to work correctly, you need to move the kernel modules out of the main sfs and into a zdrv (I think this is the case anyway). Puppeee ships this way, but I don't think any other puplets do. I wonder what Technosaurus is planning for 4.4 in this regard.

big_bass · #12 Post by **big_bass** » Sat 08 May 2010, 02:43

So is it possible to also have a Puppy version with
such a fast boot time ?

its always a plus to have a program or a series of programs run quicker

if it can be done without losing hardware support I'm all for it

but if shaving 5 -10 seconds off the boot time
limits you and everyone else to not being able to update or add new hardware or rebuilding the kernel and initrd for
"special users"

imagine doing all that work for yourself then multiply that by everyone else then divide that by the time you have living
a few seconds doesnt seem so bad

hardware detection is worth even a minute of extra boot time
when you need to use your computer

Joe

hartiberlin · #13 Post by **hartiberlin** » Sat 08 May 2010, 08:51

Hi,
I have several Pupplets in different directories
on my C: harddrive,
so I can choose uring bootup,
what I which to start.

I would really like to have a stable
OS,which boots up in 5 to 10 seconds,
which I just would use to browse the web quickly
to check my email and also have the Geany file editor
for changing a file.

That is all I need for a quick boot system.

Other OS, that I am really working with
more programs are okay to boot longer time,
but for a quick email check via the browser
or just look something up,
when you are in a hurry, I really need a fast
booting OS.

So everybody, who works on this,
please post your pupplet and your Grub bootcode
from menu.lst.

Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.

hartiberlin · #14 Post by **hartiberlin** » Sat 08 May 2010, 10:12

Okay, I found zdrv_cutter here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51552

Is version 0.3 still the newest one ?

Does this also work on browserlinux.com
to cut off the drivers I don´t need for my hardware ?

hartiberlin · #15 Post by **hartiberlin** » Sat 08 May 2010, 12:42

Hmm,
I installed the zdrv_cutter PET under Browserlinux,
but it says, it has no menu entry....

SO how do I start it then and how can I cut down
the drivers ?
Can somebody please post a detailed command
list how to do it or a link to somedoc files ?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

amigo · #16 Post by **amigo** » Sat 08 May 2010, 17:23

Removing drivers (kernel modules) will not make your machine boot any faster.
Most of the unnecessary time used while booting puppy, is spent in the complex init scripts used to detect hardware and detect where/how you are booting. The more versatile these scripts are, the more questions they ask and answer and this slows down the booting.
Removing software or kernel modules will not speed things up even one second. Reducing the ways puppy can boot and the number of hardware checks and setups to be done will speed things up.
An optimized kernel will speed things up, but only slightly.
In short, to achieve a 5-10 second boot, you must re-write the init scripts to optimize them for the way you want to boot and the hardware you want to use.

jemimah · #17 Post by **jemimah** » Sat 08 May 2010, 17:45

amigo wrote:Removing drivers (kernel modules) will not make your machine boot any faster.

I can prove this is not the case with a simple test.

Try the zdrive cutter for yourself and see. It's probably only a few seconds - but when you're shooting for 10 second boot, every second counts.

However, if you have code to increase the speed of the kernel module loading, please share!

hartiberlin · #18 Post by **hartiberlin** » Sun 09 May 2010, 03:29

So,
how does one use the zdrv_cutter program ?

Can anyone please explain how to use it
with Browserlinux.com ?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

amigo · #19 Post by **amigo** » Sun 09 May 2010, 09:33

Uh, I supplied some of the critical code for that util...
The only possible way that having less modules around will decrease boot-time is if the extra modules are being copied to RAM during bootup -the same slow-down as for anything(progs,libs) which are getting copied to RAM. Another case would be for modules which are being used -I mean which are getting loaded during bootup -if you remove them then you have reduced the functionality of your machine.

There is no way to speed up modprobe/insmod. Hard-linking the driver into the kernel will eliminate the load-time. However, even hard-linked features may have some delay during initialization of the code -a god example is with the various USB drivers. Even if you hard-link them into the kernel, it still takes about 3 seconds minimum for the drivers to be initialized. If you boot from a USB device with verbose boot messages, you can see that messages from the USB drivers get mixed in with other messages which originate much later in the boot process. This is also why booting from USB always requires a wait time after the kernel is fully loaded into RAM, but before mounting the root '/' partition.

I have a system that boots in 7-8 seconds. Most of the improvement (from a starting point of 15-18 seconds) came from modifying all the init scripts to use dash/ash instead of bash, and by optimizing the scripts to reduce redundancies or use faster routines to do the same thing. The newest kernels (2.6.32 or later) include new code which boots quite a bit faster without doing anything, so that helps.

Still, my point is that the init scripts themselves are the real bottleneck. Since Puppy is meant to built in several different way from several different types of media, it has to check for lots of options -probably even mounts some drives looking for save files, etc. All tghis takes quite a bit of time. For any particular boot-style and hardware combination, you could eliminate probably 80% of the init scripts and reduce the boot-time considerably. Jemimahs' hardware-specific (eeepc) setup is the perfect example. Since there is only a couple of different ways to boot the machine, and the hardware list is finite and known, the init sequence could be extremely simplified.

It would be quite useful to study the init sequence of other distros which are not LiveCD installations, in order to see what a normal init sequence looks like (slackware/arch/crux). Then you'll see just how much more is being done by the Puppy init process -most of which is not needed for a normal installation, and even less so for a hardware-specific setup.

For a 'normal' Puppy boot, there really is not much that can be done to speed things up without reducing the functionality or flexibility of the LiveCD. To make Puppy boot faster when *installed*, then the installed init scripts could be ones which are optimized for 'normal' (or frugal) boot up. When you install Knoppix or other such Live distros, the init scripts which get installed are not the same ones used by the LiveCD itself -they are 'normal' boot scripts.

jemimah · #20 Post by **jemimah** » Sun 09 May 2010, 15:22

It's not the modprobe itself that's slow, but something in the pup_event backend code performs faster if /lib/modules is smaller. It's doing a search through /lib/modules repeatedly or something like that. The delay at "Loading Kernel Modules" decreases if I can either decrease the number of modaliases it tries to process or decrease the number of modules in /lib/modules. It takes zero time after the zdrv cutter has been used - otherwise the loading time is proportional to how many modules I've built. (even on a full install)

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

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Instant-on fast-boot Pupplet ?

Instant-on fast-boot Pupplet ?