My 2.6.12 kernel boots to a shell in 10 seconds if the initramfs is small (~5MB). It takes 30 seconds if the initramfs is large (~11MB). The strange thing is that everything gets slower, even subsystems like PCI enumeration or network device enumeration that don't seem to have anything to do with the initramfs. I enabled CONFIG_PRINTK_TIME, and compared how long each step of the boot takes. I've appended a list of the boot steps and the RATIO of time it took to complete on the slow system versus the fast system. For example, "F=153.9" means that between the timestamp on this step's printk and the timestamp on the next step's printk, the slow system took 153.9 times longer. Does anyone see a pattern? Why do you think a larger initramfs would slow down so many seemingly unrelated steps? Dave F= 1.000000 Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes) F= 0.981481 Memory: xxxxxxx/xxxxxxx available (xxxxx kernel code, xxxxxx F= 1.043478 Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 F= 1.000000 Checking for 'wait' instruction... available. F= 1.826251 Setting root filesystem read-only. F= 1.000000 NET: Registered protocol family 16 F= 2.500000 usbcore: registered new driver usbfs F= 4.000003 usbcore: registered new driver hub F=150.499975 PCI DEV in slot 8, ID=14e4:3250 F= 1.000000 PCI PnP: PCI_BAR[0] = ffffe000 F= 1.000000 PCI PnP: size requested is 2000 F= 1.000000 PnP: Writing PCI_MEM_BAR[0]=d2000000, size=8192, mask=ffffe000 F= 1.000001 PCI PnP: PCI_BAR[1] = ff000008 F= 1.000000 PCI PnP: size requested is 1000000 F= 1.000000 PnP: Writing PCI_MEM_BAR[1]=d3000000, size=16777216, F= 1.000000 PnP: PCI_DEV 14e4:3250, command=2800146, msize=d4000000, F= 1.000000 PCI DEV in slot a, ID=104c:8101 F= 1.000000 PCI PnP: PCI_BAR[0] = ffff0000 F= 1.000000 PCI PnP: size requested is 10000 F= 1.000000 PnP: Writing PCI_MEM_BAR[0]=d4000000, size=65536, mask=ffff0000 F= 1.000000 PnP: PCI_DEV 104c:8101, command=2000146, msize=d4010000, F=153.999975 Setting up SATA controller F= 1.000000 Setting up SATA controller, VD Rev=00000520, pll_war=0, F= 1.000000 SATA: Primary Bus Master Status Register offset = b0520000 + F= 1.000000 SATA: before init Primary Bus Master Status reg = 0x00000000. F= 1.000000 SATA: after init Primary Bus Master Status reg = 0x00000020. F= 1.000000 SATA: Secondary Bus Master Status Register offset = b0520000 + F= 1.000000 SATA: before init Secondary Bus Master Status reg = 0x00000000. F= 1.000000 SATA: after init Secondary Bus Master Status reg = 0x00000060. F=494.333329 JFFS2 version 2.2. (C) 2001-2003 Red Hat, Inc. F=278.666621 Broadcom serial driver version 1.00 (2000-11-09) with SERIAL_PCI F= 1.000000 io scheduler noop registered F= 1.000001 io scheduler deadline registered F=277.999954 NVMEMDISK driver initialized: version 1.0 NVMEM disk of 212K F=206.999966 RAMDISK driver initialized: 3 RAM disks of 49152K size 1024 F=483.750033 loop: loaded (max 8 devices) F= 1.000000 Broadcom BCM703825 Ethernet Network Device v1.0 Aug 20 2007 F= 1.000000 Chip revision = 0x 25, Board ID = 0x20 F= 1.000000 : Reading MAC address from 98058062, FLASH_BASE=98000000 F= 1.000000 : MAC address: 00:19:5E:84:29:AF fetched from flash at addr F= 1.000000 : MAC Address: 00:19:5E:84:29:AF F= 1.000000 init_buffers: 96 descriptors initialized F= 1.000000 init_buffers: 00000060 descriptors initialized, from flowctl F= 0.999385 BCMINTMAC: 100 MB Full-Duplex (auto-neg) F=431.499930 Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2 F= 1.000000 ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override F= 1.000000 Broadcom BCM7038 SATA IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot F= 1.000001 Broadcom BCM7038 SATA IDE: chipset revision 0 F= 1.000000 Broadcom BCM7038 SATA IDE: 100% native mode on irq 40 F= 1.000000 ide0: BM-DMA at 0x0300-0x0307, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, F= 1.000000 ide1: BM-DMA at 0x0308-0x030f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, F= 5.885714 hda: ST3160212SCE, ATA DISK drive F= 2.203583 ide0 at 0x200-0x207,0x242 on irq 40 F= 6.876448 hda: max request size: 1024KiB F= 4.901639 hda: 312581808 sectors (160041 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, F= 14.526316 hda: cache flushes supported F=377.999938 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 > F= 28.784810 BCM97XXX flash device: 4000000 at 18000000 F= 1.000000 Broadcom 9xxxx mapped flash: Found 1 x16 devices at 0x0 in F= 1.000001 Amd/Fujitsu Extended Query Table at 0x0040 F= 1.000000 Broadcom 9xxxx mapped flash: CFI does not contain boot bank F= 1.000000 number of CFI chips: 1 F= 1.000000 cfi_cmdset_0002: Disabling erase-suspend-program due to code F= 1.000000 Creating 4 MTD partitions on "Broadcom 9xxxx mapped flash": F= 1.000000 0x00000000-0x000a0000 : "xxxxx" F= 78.000060 0x000a0000-0x008a0000 : "xxxxxx" F=305.999950 0x008a0000-0x00e20000 : "xxxxxxx" F=281.999954 0x00e20000-0x01fe0000 : "xxxxxxxx" F=279.999953 pfd_module: Module loaded. F= 1.000000 ehci_hcd_brcm_init: Initializing 1 EHCI devices F= 1.000000 10 Dec 2004 USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver F=556.000427 -->brcm_ehci_hw_initbrcm_ehci_hw_init: Reset at b04c0310 F= 1.000000 <--brcm_ehci_hw_init<6>brcm-ehci brcm-ehci.0: BRCM EHCI F=139.499977 brcm-ehci brcm-ehci.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus F= 1.000000 brcm-ehci brcm-ehci.0: irq 60, io mem 0x104c0300 F= 1.000000 brcm-ehci brcm-ehci.0: park 0 F= 1.000000 brcm-ehci brcm-ehci.0: USB 0.0 initialized, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 F=210.999966 hub 1-0:1.0: Ignoring bus F= 1.000000 2004 Nov 08 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver F= 1.000000 brcm_start_hc: Resetting at b04c0408 F= 1.000000 brcm-ohci-0 brcm-ohci-0.0: BRCM OHCI F=301.999951 brcm-ohci-0 brcm-ohci-0.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus F= 1.000000 brcm-ohci-0 brcm-ohci-0.0: irq 61, io mem 0x104c0400 F= 53.000000 hub 2-0:1.0: Ignoring bus F= 1.000001 2004 Nov 08 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver F=560.999908 drivers/usb/host/ohci-brcm.c: starting brcm OHCI USB Controller F= 1.000000 brcm_start_hc: Resetting at b04c0508 F= 1.000000 <-- brcm_start_hc F= 1.000000 brcm-ohci-1 brcm-ohci-1.1: BRCM OHCI F=279.000214 brcm-ohci-1 brcm-ohci-1.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus F= 1.000000 brcm-ohci-1 brcm-ohci-1.1: irq 62, io mem 0x104c0500 F= 33.705882 hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found F= 1.000000 hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected F= 24.833333 usbcore: registered new driver usbnet F= 1.000000 NET: Registered protocol family 2 F= 2.454545 IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes F= 1.000000 TCP established hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 F= 1.000000 TCP bind hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes) F= 1.000000 TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384) F= 1.000000 NET: Registered protocol family 1 F= 1.000000 NET: Registered protocol family 17 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ