Ubuntu aims for ten-second boot time with 10.04

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/06/ubuntu-aims-for-ten-second-boot-time.ars

by habs • 17 years ago

30 16 17 years ago

This will vastly improve the usability of LiveCDs.

eru• 17 years ago

Yes. But I doubt LiveCDs will reach the 10s limit. (Though they may probably benefit from the work being done.) At the current state of the art the Ubuntu LiveCD takes a magnitude longer to boot than a HDD install.

dimitar• 17 years ago

Live thumbdrives, maybe :-)

zcrar70• 17 years ago

Live CDs will still boot slower than full installs, because accessing the CD is a lot slower than accessing the HDD. I'm wondering whether the boot time for Live CDs will be fast enough to avoid displaying the progress bar, or whether they will have to boot Live CDs differently than HDD installs.

mapleoin2• 17 years ago

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention Fedora's boot time. Fedora already has 20 seconds (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/20SecondStartup) and their last release was 30 seconds. So I guess they've got a head-start

jncraton• 17 years ago

They may have a small head start. The article also doesn't mention what the boot time is for the current 9.10 build of Ubuntu.

TallGuyShort• 17 years ago

For me, Ubuntu 9.04 already boots in under 20 seconds. I'm at the login screen 18 seconds after pushing the power button (so that includes the time BIOS still has control). I'm using a pretty low-end laptop.

stcredzero• 17 years ago

Clueless help-desk techs often count "boot time" as the time it takes for you to boot, then log into your account. Then when you follow their instructions and call them back "after it boots" they get irate at you for making them wait another few seconds.

philwelch• 17 years ago

Steve Jobs would be pleased:

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

buugs• 17 years ago

Since Ubuntu wants to become the one true desktop distribution, or so it seems, they should focus more on usability and improving user interface because to be honest as long as it boots faster than windows xp (excluding a fresh install) they should be fine.

albertni• 17 years ago

Overall I agree with you, but usability and user interface don't do anything for someone who doesn't even consider using Ubuntu. Boot time is one of those things that, if you get it beyond a certain threshold of speed, can really jump out and grab someone's attention. For those people who power down their computers and start them up again for whatever reason, it'll be extremely noticeable every single time, both when they start up their own 10.04 machines, and when they go to non-10.04 machines that start up way more slowly. This seems like one of those things that will serve a specific group of people very very well, and doesn't hurt for everyone else. As long as they're not sacrificing too much effort for this, it seems like it could be a good use of effort.

wvenable• 17 years ago

In the land of laptops, powering down is a lot less frequent. Vista's "power button" by default suspends. The hardware power button suspends. I suspect a lot of Windows users almost never reboot.

pgebhard• 17 years ago

I can see how this would be a god-send to people who might spend a lot of time messing around with VMs. Those users probably fall under your case.

Zak• 17 years ago

I certainly won't complain about faster boot times, but it seems like an odd thing to focus on for the netbook market. Do people really power down netbooks instead of just suspending them?

mapleoin2• 17 years ago

it's good for the environment ;) . I always power down my notebook at night.

Ubuntu aims for ten-second boot time with 10.04

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