Re: Embedded Linux Boot Time Poll

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Hello Andrew,

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 12:20:50AM +0100, Andrew Murray wrote:
> I'm performing some research [for a CELF presentation] into reducing
> boot time on embedded systems and would like to see if the embedded
> community agree with the following statement as to why Linux
> [arguably] takes so long in the first place for an unoptimised system:
>
> "Linux is general purpose, convenient and flexible. As it's general
> purpose it's likely to contain un-required functionality which results
> in more initialisation and a larger image size. As it's convenient and
> flexible it will spent time discovering devices and verifying their
> existence."
>
> Do you largely agree or disagree?  Also do you believe that boot time
> isn't the highest priority when it comes to improving the kernel?

I second what the others have already written. With a resonably tuned
system it is possible to gain boot times of < 0.5 s into the Linux
userspace on a 532 MHz MX35 (ARM1136).

What highly matters if the use case, which in turn influences what can
be done to decrease the boot time.

- If a distribution is tuned to "run everywhere", it has to do a lot of
  probing, which needs time (i.e. a general purpose distribution on an
  ARM or PowerPC). In turn, you can easily install almost everything on
  such a system

- If a system can be optimized for a special scenario (i.e. a machine
  operator terminal), you can configure away almost all unrequired
  functionality. In turn, it may be difficult to install random software
  parts on such a system.

It's more a matter of paradigms.

I assume we'll have nice boot time discussons at ELC-E, I also have a
talk there concering this topic :-)

rsc
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