I chose antiX over Ubuntu for an old laptop I have because of the promise of being leaner and meaner. I'm very happy with it in general but I'm a little disappointed at how slow it is to boot up. I tried different tricks I found on the net, like disabling some services and daemons but it still takes too long to boot up. It is still way faster than booting up with windows but it takes almost two minutes to be ready to access the web. I've heard of netbooks that take way less time than that to start up and connect to the net. A friend of mine told me he can boot up in 40 seconds.

It is difficult for me to figure out what it is that makes the process slow but I notice that the boot up screen pauses for a especially long time on the following two points:

unsplash: no usable theme found for 1024x768
screen init failed

---
acpi_bus_get_device(bay) failed -19
thinkpad_acpi:CMOS NVRAM (7) and EC (0) do not agree on display brightness level


Does this give me a hint that could help me fix the problem responsible for the slowness or whatever error that is it has nothing to do with the boot up time?

This is an old laptop that I have laying around and I would like to be able to boot up as fast as possible to read my mail or do some quick search on the web. Any help to make the boot up process faster will be greatly appreciated.

Try adding
noacpi
to the boot menu

or
noapic

or
acpi =off

Le us know about your hardware

In a terminal

inxi -F

I assume when you suggested to add acpi=off to the boot menu you meant to /boot/grub/menu.lst

I did that. Adding noacpi or noapic did nothing. When I added acpi=off that made things worse. I got an error message saying:"Fatal error: Error inserting fan (/lib/modules/2.6.27-1-mepis-smp/kernel/drivers/api/fan..."

Here's the output of inxi -F


jfontana@TabletLinux:~$ inxi -F
System: Host TabletLinux Kernel 2.6.27-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M8 Intifada! 12 February 2009
CPU: Single core Intel Pentium M (UP) cache 2048 KB flags (sse2 nx) bmips 2993.15 clocked at 1500.00 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller X.Org 1.4.2 Res 1024x768@60.0hz
Audio: Card Intel 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller driver Intel ICH at ports 1c00 18c0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.17
Network: Card-1 Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection driver ipw2200 v: 1.2.2kmprq
Card-2 Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express driver tg3 v: 3.94
Disks: HDD Total Size: 40.0GB (6.9% used) 1: /dev/sda HTC426040G9AT00 40.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 4.9G used: 2.6G (56%) ID: swap:/dev/sda2 size: 4.19GB
Info: Processes 74 Uptime 1 min Memory 111.5/1255.2MB Client Shell inxi 1.0.1

A few things to try as it maybe kernel related.

1. Upgrade to the latest MEPIS kernel (if you haven;t done so)
#apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

2. Install a sidux kernel via the smxi script

3. Install a Debian kernel via smxi or synaptic.

FWIW, i launched sysvconfig as root and then disabled the following:

# sysvconfig then i edited the first part of the /boot/grub/menu.lst then i went to /etc/inittab and changed the default run level at the top of the file, and left it looking like this:

# The default runlevel. Then eliminated 'slim' (the display manager): #reboot

when you come back:
login: type your username <Enter>
password: your user password <Enter>
$ type 'startx' <Enter>
and you should be in the X system

What you're doing, is eliminating some eyecandy and a dm, the time to boot, etc
From POST to startx in my box= 21 seconds
Hope it helps __{{emoticon}}__

Thanks Anti.

Well, I tried to do a few of the things you suggested:

1. Upgrade to the latest MEPIS kernel (if you haven;t done so)
#apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

This didn't change anything. I still get the same error messages in the boot process.
What was more difficult for me was to update the Debian kernel as I don't have much experience. I tried to do it via synaptic but I could not get anything resembling Debian kernel in my search. I searched for information on the web as to how to update your kernel but all I could find is this:

# apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-686-smp

That is, you have to know the specific number for the kernel version you have to install. I haven't been able to find the number for the last Debian kernel version. Synaptic would be ideal since it automatically selects the latest versions but, as I said, I don't know how to do it via synaptic.

Thanks Macondo.

Those are good pointers but I think that until I solve the problems that cause the error messages I get during the boot process I won't be able to really speed up my boot up.

You say you disable:

ifupdown
networking (i got no LAN)
nvidia-kernel (no nvidia card)
cups (I got no printer)
openbsd-inetd

OK, I disabled nvidia-kernel (since I have no nvidia card) but I didn't disable ifupdown, openbsd-inetd or networking since I want my laptop to connect to the web and to my network.

In principle I won't need to print that much from this computer but my question is, if I disable cups, would I be able to print in case I decide I need to print?

In the end, I decided not to disable the display manager because I thought the little gain I could get in speeding up the process, I would loose by having to type startx and wait for the desktop environment to show up every time.

Am I wrong in my reasoning?

Anyway, even doing many of the things you suggest, the whole boot up process still lasts 1 minute and 20 seconds. As I said before, I think part of the slowness has to do with the errors I mentioned in my initial message. Before and after the message errors show up, the whole process seems to stop. It takes quite a few seconds until I get a message that says"Manually reviving the bootlog daemon...done"

Also, I see a message saying"starting bittorrent daemon bittorrent-transmission daemon". As I won't be using bittorrent with this laptop, I'd like to disable this daemon but I don't see any way to do it with system > choose startup services.

jfontana wrote: OK, I disabled nvidia-kernel (since I have no nvidia card) but I didn't disable ifupdown, openbsd-inetd or networking since I want my laptop to connect to the web and to my network.

If you have a LAN, do not disable networking, disabling openbsd-inet won't affect your access to the internet.

In principle I won't need to print that much from this computer but my question is, if I disable cups, would I be able to print in case I decide I need to print?

No. You need cups to print.

In the end, I decided not to disable the display manager because I thought the little gain I could get in speeding up the process, I would loose by having to type startx and wait for the desktop environment to show up every time.

If startx is too long, use 'x' after adding aliases to your .bashrc, see my howto in Tips and Tricks.

Anyway, even doing many of the things you suggest, the whole boot up process still lasts 1 minute and 20 seconds.

You don't mention editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst . Did you do it? That's an important factor.

As I said before, I think part of the slowness has to do with the errors I mentioned in my initial message. Before and after the message errors show up, the whole process seems to stop. It takes quite a few seconds until I get a message that says"Manually reviving the bootlog daemon...done"

Of course i might be wrong, you haven't mentioned how much ram you got or your processor speed.

Being an old laptop, IMHO, you need to eliminate all the eyecandy you get with a default antiX. You need a display manager and a splash screen like another hole in the head __{{emoticon}}__
They EAT ram memory, if you ain't got much, it's gonna slow down, writing 'startx' doesn't slow you down, waiting for the screens to show up at boot time does, same with the dm. Eliminating the splash screen by editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst solves this.

Also, I see a message saying"starting bittorrent daemon bittorrent-transmission daemon". As I won't be using bittorrent with this laptop, I'd like to disable this daemon but I don't see any way to do it with system > choose startup services.

I disabled this after installing the firewall 'guarddog' that comes with a lot of stuff enabled by default, i couldn't figure out how to this with firehol.

Also, I see a message saying"starting bittorrent daemon bittorrent-transmission daemon". As I won't be using bittorrent with this laptop, I'd like to disable this daemon but I don't see any way to do it with system > choose startup services.

disable transmission-daemon for the bittorrent

unsplash: no usable theme found for 1024x768
screen init failed

remove from synaptic (control center>system>manage packages): usplash usplash-debian-theme and a libusplash0 (as i recall), to get rid of the error

when i first started using antix on the desktop it was booting up in 1.20 or 1.40 seconds not because some errors but because it stayed 10 seconds to tell me about the network card, 20 seconds to tell me about the ipw3845 driver that i didn't had and sometimse 25 seconds for dhcp. i'ved fix them after a week or soo. so watch out not only for thr errors but for things that stall.HTH

also if you installed antix with initrd check for grub that thing takes 5 seconds more to load on my laptop and is the cause for uplash error.

To install a sidux or Debian kernel, you can use the smxi script.
You might need to make a few edits though.

Have a look here

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/installing-debian-kernel-using-smxi-t1383.html?hilit=smxi"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/installing- ... hilit=smxi"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

and the links in the thread, especially to the smxi site

This is kind of a long shot, but I wonder if some of these problems with the slow boot might have to do with the sda/hda thing. Once I changed my grub/menu.lst to UUID's all kernels seem to boot faster, whereas before that, especially with the sidux kernel and zen, it would take a LONG time to get past certain points before eventually dying anyway.

Well, just a suggestion, not really sure if it will fix the problem.

Pedro

Of course i might be wrong, you haven't mentioned how much ram you got or your processor speed.

Being an old laptop, IMHO, you need to eliminate all the eyecandy you get with a default antiX. You need a display manager and a splash screen like another hole in the head __{{emoticon}}__
They EAT ram memory, if you ain't got much, it's gonna slow down, writing 'startx' doesn't slow you down, waiting for the screens to show up at boot time does, same with the dm. Eliminating the splash screen by editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst solves this.

Thanks for the answer Macondo. Actually, the thing is that this is not such an old laptop. It is a ThinkPad X41. OK, it is a bit old but it has 1GB of RAM. I agree with you that getting rid of the eye candy might speed up the boot process but the problem is that it does take a long time even before it gets to the point where it starts to load the display manager. So I wanted to solve all the other problems (whatever they are, because I'm still not sure about what is really going on) before I start getting rid of the display manager and see how many seconds I save by doing that.

I didn't mention it in my previous post but I did modify the menu.lst as you suggested and the speed of the boot up process didn't improve by much.

disable transmission-daemon
...
remove from synaptic (control center>system>manage packages): usplash usplash-debian-theme and a libusplash0 (as i recall), to get rid of the error

Thanks Ice-M. That was very helpful. I did it and I saved a few seconds.

when i first started using antix on the desktop it was booting up in 1.20 or 1.40 seconds not because some errors but because it stayed 10 seconds to tell me about the network card, 20 seconds to tell me about the ipw3845 driver that i didn't had and sometimse 25 seconds for dhcp. i'ved fix them after a week or soo. so watch out not only for thr errors but for things that stall.HTH

Actually, I have the feeling this is part of the problem. How did you fix that?

these problems with the slow boot might have to do with the sda/hda thing. Once I changed my grub/menu.lst to UUID's all kernels seem to boot faster, whereas before that, especially with the sidux kernel and zen, it would take a LONG time to get past certain points before eventually dying anyway.

Thanks Pedro. I will give that a try. Problem is I kind of a newby with all this, how do I figure out what my uuids are so that I can implement the change you suggest?

To install a sidux or Debian kernel, you can use the smxi script.
You might need to make a few edits though.

OK, I have some doubts about this. If I installed antiX very recently (besides doing #apt-get update and #apt-get dist-upgrade as you suggested), shouldn't I already be running with the latest version of the Debian kernel?

How does one figure what kernel is running on his computer? I checked in synaptic and I see I have:

linux-image-2.6.27-1-mepis-sn 2.6.27-18mepis1

installed. Isn't this already the latest version of the Debian kernel? I'm sorry about my ignorance.

At any rate, if I have to install the Debian kernel, I went to the thread you suggested
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/installing-debian-kernel-using-smxi-t1383.html?hilit=smxi"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/installing- ... hilit=smxi"
====================================
but I didn't find any information that could help me obtain the smxi script.

There is actually a message posted by yourself were you suggest using:

#apt-get install linux-image-2.6.26-1-486

to install the Debian kernel. As I said, though, I searched through synaptic and it looks like I already have the latest version of the linux-image (that is, I think, the kernel) available in that repository.