How long does it take to boot up?
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
Definitely a nifty idea. Some motherboard vendors have even made a start. They include a browser & other minimal apps within the bios. In my case, I'd like a boot option to track how long Windows spends doing what during boot. Would be great to figure out where my machine stalls for 30 seconds during hibernate resume (after the loading bar reaches 100%)... :mad: -- Ian
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
I still remember booting some DOS extender from two floppies... What an improvement was booting from hard drive! I don't mind the total time as much as the interruptions. Turn on the computer, wait for it to prompt for username and password, wait for it to become usable. In a domain, the two waits can be significant.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist -
Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
I guess you could install something like damn small linux running xfce with firefox installed on a separate partition and select it from the boot options. I've been doing some testing on Ubuntu Karmic Koala on my Netbook and the boot times seem really good so far so maybe Xubuntu 9.10 will do what you're looking for when it's released in October.
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
I know what you mean - my old Amiga had a carefully hand crafted startup-sequence to get the boot time down to about 10 seconds. Every line that could be tweaked had been, and many stock systems had been replaced with 3rd party faster replacements. Nowadays, I don't have a freaking clue what Vista spends its time doing on startup.
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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I know what you mean - my old Amiga had a carefully hand crafted startup-sequence to get the boot time down to about 10 seconds. Every line that could be tweaked had been, and many stock systems had been replaced with 3rd party faster replacements. Nowadays, I don't have a freaking clue what Vista spends its time doing on startup.
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
benjymous wrote:
Nowadays, I don't have a freaking clue what Vista spends its time doing on startup.
Sipping mint juleps? Farting around? Chasing its tail? Twiddling its digital thumbs? Nothing at all? You can't really be sure, its Vista...
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
Agreed definitely. Would be nice if I could just stop that blasted indexing service re-enabling itself with every windows update and deciding to index my drives at the worst possible time in a game causing several screen frames to be missed.
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Agreed definitely. Would be nice if I could just stop that blasted indexing service re-enabling itself with every windows update and deciding to index my drives at the worst possible time in a game causing several screen frames to be missed.
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
If you want more control over your operating system, you can always download Free DOS :-D I downloaded it the other day, and installed it on a machine. Takes about 4 or 5 seconds to boot up :-D
If everything was not true, would it be not true that everything is not true? So by saying everything is not true, you are automatically denying that everything is not true. Im so confused...
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
I'd much rather have a system that I can sleep/hibernate easily and reliably - not only is a paused PC (hopefully!) quicker to become usable than a stopped machine, but also that way I can pause the PC and more easily pick up what I was doing without needing to restart applications etc. That's probably why I'd much rather use a laptop that allows me to do that...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
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I still remember booting some DOS extender from two floppies... What an improvement was booting from hard drive! I don't mind the total time as much as the interruptions. Turn on the computer, wait for it to prompt for username and password, wait for it to become usable. In a domain, the two waits can be significant.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighistMy start up routine in the morning (I cold boot every morning) Turn on computer get water while it thinks about it acknowledge about 30 lines of I have no idea what that probably says if I not an employee to sod off user id and password plug reader into usb charger accept conditions of use acknowledge that 6 dives have been mapped ctrl shift esc to get Task manager start reading book til machine stabilises - this can take 10 minutes. get on with the days work What a PITA, but hey thats what I have to do to get paid.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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My start up routine in the morning (I cold boot every morning) Turn on computer get water while it thinks about it acknowledge about 30 lines of I have no idea what that probably says if I not an employee to sod off user id and password plug reader into usb charger accept conditions of use acknowledge that 6 dives have been mapped ctrl shift esc to get Task manager start reading book til machine stabilises - this can take 10 minutes. get on with the days work What a PITA, but hey thats what I have to do to get paid.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
OK OK I stop complaining :rolleyes:
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
acknowledge that 6 dives have been mapped
Maybe all that water has a diluting effect on performance?
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist -
OK OK I stop complaining :rolleyes:
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
acknowledge that 6 dives have been mapped
Maybe all that water has a diluting effect on performance?
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighistpedant
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
ASUS motherboards have a feature called expressgate that supposedly boots an in BIOS linux in less than 5 seconds that will give you access to a browser. I have not tried this feature yet because the installer runs only under windows and I do not have windows installed on my home computer.
John
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Piece of history I just recalled after reading this article about Bloatware[^] What I recalled was that loooong time ago around the time of DOS version which came with the option to make multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat sections having a boot-up menu to select which to use. On my computer there was like 10 options with all those EMS/XMS drivers, different HMA drivers/resident programs and their loading orders. Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory. I used to have scanner and tape driver (for backup) which had their own huge drivers, ofcourse I allways had to reboot in order to use them as their drivers were never loaded in "normal" boot options - they were so SLOW to load. Most of the boot options were there to distribute needs to boot as fast as possible and slow ones were for specific task. Rebooting was not a pain in the ass since I remember using stopwatch to time them and it was within some "seconds" for the fastest ones. Sometimes I wish I would have so much power over todays operating systems so that I could boot up for "browser only" option. Or for any specific task an option that only loads the necessary components... I would love to dig into some "system.conf" files with text editor and modify these. Thinking about gaming, wouldnt it be fancy to run a "sandbox" option with the gfx/sound drivers and without internet connection to dedicate full system provess for only one instance that's a game. Well, that starts to sound like "good old amiga and their own operating system per game way". Or maybe I have just become dull and dont know how to tweak windows or linux that way. (still, using sysinternals autoruns app I can see windows loads those dozens and dozens drivers I dont have the faintest clue about!). Duh!
Raybarg wrote:
Back then it felt so geeky to know a mouse driver devours 32kb memory on load but as resident only takes 4kb, so it has to load first because after that there might not be enough memory to load and you end up with unused HMA as it is loaded in system memory
I salute you. While I had a half dozenish boot options that sort of detail was beyond anything I ever knew about. :beer: IMO the biggest problem with the various splashtops is that you need to do a full reboot if you need anything beyond the minimal subset offered. If I was an Ms/Apple/*nix OS coder creating a splashtop that continued silently loading the full OS in the background while Joe User was surfing the web would be high on the list of things I'd want my platform to gain bragging rights for being the first to implement. In general, the spread of good SSDs should help on the boot front since random access and disk thrashing is one of the slowdowns and good SDDs will spank anything mechanical in that metric.
The European Way of War: Blow your own continent up. The American Way of War: Go over and help them.
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I'd much rather have a system that I can sleep/hibernate easily and reliably - not only is a paused PC (hopefully!) quicker to become usable than a stopped machine, but also that way I can pause the PC and more easily pick up what I was doing without needing to restart applications etc. That's probably why I'd much rather use a laptop that allows me to do that...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
Stuart Dootson wrote:
a system that I can sleep/hibernate easily and reliably
Actually this is one of those things that Vista and then Windows 7 seems to have fixed. In XP sleep/hibernate was very hit and miss. In Vista it was solid, and in Windows 7 it seems solid and very fast. So I'm back to always just closing the lid on my laptop and hearing it turn off in 5 secs instead of always shutting it down. Yay.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Stuart Dootson wrote:
a system that I can sleep/hibernate easily and reliably
Actually this is one of those things that Vista and then Windows 7 seems to have fixed. In XP sleep/hibernate was very hit and miss. In Vista it was solid, and in Windows 7 it seems solid and very fast. So I'm back to always just closing the lid on my laptop and hearing it turn off in 5 secs instead of always shutting it down. Yay.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Coolio - another reason to upgrade to W7 where possible. I did hibernate my Dad's Vista PC (accidently) once - seemed to take longer to wake up than it did to boot up, but at least it woke up properly, which is more than my old XP laptop could manage (it throttled the processor down to slooooooow every time it hibernated/slept).
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p