While I like every idea except the special kernel, which would add complexity and not really give us any advantage in terms boot time I think. You might want to look at Robert M. Love's preload work in the SuSE camp, it seems to be work in the same area, you might pick up some ideas - David On fre, 2004-07-23 at 08:21 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote: > Hi, > > I'll post my self intro message later, I've been not sleeping alnight > thinking about a scheme to speed up desktop start-up times for Fedora, > and want to get it out of my head before I loose parts of it. > > The basic idea is todo things the XP way and loads lotts of (cr)app(s) > while the user is already seeing a GUI. > > For this we need a couple of basic changes: > -remove starting of prefdm from inittab and make it a service > -add a prefdm-early service, which as the name says starts early if > possible (right after kudzu), and which avoids the prefdm service from > starting by using the same subsys lock. > -move starting some of slow things from rc.sysinit to a service, detect > if they really needed early in rc.sysinit and then call/source the > service script. > -Introduce a desktop config flag somewhere in /etc/sysconfig, which: > makes sysinitrc skip lotts of enterprise setup stuff > -Introduce a desktop kernel as a counterwheight to the enterprise > kernels which leaves out more advanced server stuff such as raid, > devicemapper, advanced routing, etc. > > > Now the dirty inner workings of my scheme: > ------------------------------------------ > > Delay USB-init: > -usb (including the sleep call, GRRR) is moved from rc.sysinit to a > service, which starts before networking, but after prefdm-early. > -in rc.sysinit, at the place where usb used to be, take for each > line /etc/fstab which is not a comment, empty and doesnot contain > noauto, if it begins with LABEL=, see if we have a partition with such > a delay. if it begins with /dev/, see if we can open the device > -check if we can open /dev/input/mous0 and /dev/input/keyboard0 > -now if one of the LABELs or devices can't be openened, we > probably have an USB attached disk, or HID device we need, so start USB > now > -on a normal desktop, all these checks should work without USB, so usb > will be started later as part of the runlevel, again the subsyslock > should avoid double starting. > -ofcourse there needs to be a way to tell rc.sysinit to always load USB > early > > Delay loading scsi modules and the long scsi chain scan: > -on some systems, people have a scsi-card for say a scanner, or > because the bought a cdrecorder in the days atapi was unreliable, > so they have scsi but they don't have any disks attached! > -make mkinitrd try to rmmod sd_mod, if this succeeds scsi is clearly > not needed for disks, so don't put the scsi modules in the initrd > -add a scsi-service which loads the modules when initrd hasn't done so > already. > -of course there needs to be a way to tell mkinitrd to always load the > scsi modules. > > Services prefdm-pre-net and prefdm-post-net: > -the pre-net prefdm checks if the user has choicen an authentication > method which requires networking and checks /etc/fstab for > netfilesystems on vital places like /usr, /home. If neither of these > are there it starts the prefdm service. > (netfs mounts like /archive or /lotsofmp3s really aren't all that > interesting to get mounted instant IMHO) > (the checking for netfs can be done in the loop in sysinitrc and then > be reported to this script in someway) > -the post-net script always starts prefdm, it is there for admins to > remove in ntsysv if they want the old behaviour where prefdm starts > last, maybe the prefdm-*-net scripts, could even go in a sperate RPM, > which then can just be removed be people who think this is a bug > instead of a feature. > -the real prefdm service should thus get prio99, moving rc.local to prio > 98 > > > Well I'm sure this idea is full of holes, so shoot. But please this is > not meant as an invitation to start a flamewar about how FC / linux > startup time sucks, if you want to talk about that talk to the wall, > ceiling or floor. > > Regards, > > Hans > > > > -- > EuropeSwPatentFree http://EuropeSwPatentFree.hispalinux.es > >
