Some boot time comparison : MeeGo is ahead

I've got a brand new netbook to test MeeGo images I'm generating and I thought it could be useful to have some comparisons data regarding boot speed across the various distributions available, on the same hardware (even if it is considered as a low-entry system, it shares the same kind of hardware as most netbooks around)

Hardware : eMachines M350 : CPU : Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz, 1GB memory, 160GB hard-disk

Test was done with system running on AC power and with Ethernet cable plugged. Each distribution was installed then updated to latest bugfix / security updates and rebooted several time to ensure readahead (or similar mecanism) were working properly (when available)



Values there are not extremely precise (I used my watch to measure them) but bootcharts data (measured with each distribution integrated bootchart tool, which explains why they don't display the same data) are available at http://www.gnome.org/~fcrozat/bootchart/

• Win XP preinstalled with the netbook:
• 56s : user interface visible (but still stuff running in the background)
• 1min27s : ready
• JoliCloud 1.0 :
• 36s to get to gdm
• 1min 16s (to get from grub to main interface ready, in autologin mode)
• Mandriva 2010 Spring (GNOME)
• 34s to get to gdm
• 48s (to get from grub to main interface ready, in autologin mode)
• Fedora 13 :
• 41s to get gdm
• 55s (grub to main interface ready, autologin, with readahead enabled)
• Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook
• 25s to gdm
• 36s (grub to main interface "ready", mouse cursor no longer busy), but interface visible and usable at 26s
• Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop (GNOME)
• 22s to gdm
• 27s (grub to main interface "ready", mouse cursor no longer busy)
• openSUSE 11.3 (GNOME) (with preload working)
• 37s to gdm
• 55s (grub to system ready)
• Intel MeeGo 1.0.2 :
• 25s (after first boot)
• 18s (bootloader to system ready) with sreadahead working
• SUSE Meego 1.0:
• 24s (bootloader to system ready), without prelink
• 20s (bootloader to system ready), without prelink when sreadahead is done
• 17s (bootloader to system ready), with prelink + sreadahead

GUADEC finished, time for a new job : SUSE MeeGo

GUADEC 2010 was great (as always), meeting unknown and new faces, attending great talks. My favorite was Open Design Thinking Workshop and I hope InventedHere.de folks will be to future GUADECs and maybe other events, like FOSDEM (hint, hint).

I guess most people who discussed with me there knew already and  Michael already let the cat out of the bag: I've joined Novell, to work on SUSE MeeGo.