 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 818, 10 June 2019 |
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Welcome to this year's 23rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
At the end of May openSUSE published a new release of the distribution's Leap branch. This stable branch of the openSUSE project shares code with SUSE Linux Enterprise and offers some special features not found in most Linux distributions. Robert Rijkhoff took openSUSE Leap 15.1 for a spin and reports on his findings in our Feature Story. With the new release now available, openSUSE 42 is nearing the end of its supported life and we discuss this in our News section. We also share highlights from FreeBSD's Quarterly Status Report and link to work being done to shrink DragonFly BSD's install media. Then, in our Question and Answers column, we discuss how to measure, and reduce, boot times. Let us know how quickly your computer can start-up in our Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: openSUSE Leap 15.1
- News: openSUSE 42 approaches end of life, FreeBSD's status report, DragonFly BSD reduces media size
- Questions and answers: Improving boot times
- Released last week: NetBSD 8.1, Zorin 15, Enso 0.3.1
- Torrent corner: ArchBang, ArcoLinux, AUSTRUMI, Clonezilla, Condres, Enso, HardenedBSD, IPFire, NetBSD, SmartOS, Zorin
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 11.3-RC1
- Opinion poll: Boot times
- New distributions: Resilient Linux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Robert Rijkhoff) |
openSUSE Leap 15.1
openSUSE is one of those distros I have always been interested in but which I had never used for more than a few hours. Recently the project released Leap 15.1, which was a good enough reason to give the distro a proper spin.
The distro hardly needs an introduction. It is a community project sponsored by SUSE, one of the larger commercial Linux vendors. openSUSE maintains two distros: Tumbleweed is a rolling release distro and upstream to SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE). Leap is a stable (non-rolling) distro that is downstream to SLE. A new version of Leap is released roughly once a year, and each version is supported for 18 months. The Leap 15.x series as a whole is supported for three years.
openSUSE is probably best known for the Btrfs file system, Snapper and YaST. As Leap 15.1 is a relatively small, conservative upgrade from 15.0 I will mainly focus on these features. I will also have a look at where things may be heading.
Upgrading from 15.0
I started my trial by installing Leap 15.0. I went with the default KDE Plasma desktop and the default partitioning scheme: the installer gave me a /boot/efi partition, a Btrfs root file system and an XFS /home partition). The reason for starting with the previous release was partly to get an idea of what has changed in 15.1 and partly to test the upgrade process.
The upgrade worked but it was more involved than system upgrades in Ubuntu and Fedora. This is mainly because you need to manually move the /var/cache directory to a separate Btrfs subvolume. I gather that openSUSE is working on making upgrading the system easier and that you may only have to run "zypper --releasever 15.2 dup" when Leap 15.2 comes out. If you have ever upgraded a Fedora install then that command will look very familiar.
openSUSE 15.1 -- Upgrading from Leap 15.0 to 15.1
(full image size: 151kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The upgrade process is described quite well on the wiki (see the link above). One thing I appreciate is that the documentation strongly recommends disabling third-party repositories before starting the upgrade and to run the "zypper dup" command only after switching to the multi-user target (the equivalent of what used to be runlevel 3).
Visually, Leap 15.0 and 15.1 look pretty much the same. Leap 15.1 has the same wallpaper and the Plasma desktop has moved forward ever so slightly, from version 5.12.5 to 5.12.8 (the current stable version is 5.15.5). Similarly, most pre-installed applications are a little more up to date than they were but by no means "bleeding edge". The same goes for the kernel (4.12) and systemd (234). This is of course by design - for users who want the latest and greatest software there is Tumbleweed.
openSUSE 15.1 -- Plasma desktop after the upgrade
(full image size: 475kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Fresh install (KDE Plasma and GNOME)
For a fresh installation there is a single ISO that lets you install Leap with either the KDE, GNOME or IceWM desktop (there are two server versions on the ISO as well - more about them later). As there is a lot of stuff on the image it is rather large (over 4GB). If you prefer a smaller ISO then you can download the network image, which is just 120MB. Of course, you will then have to download all packages you need during the installation process but it should save a fair amount of bandwidth.
openSUSE uses its own installer. As the default ISO doesn't include a live environment (there are separate ISOs for that) I am not able to show you pretty screen shots but I can report that the installer works very well. For the most part you can just click the Next button a handful of times. However, if you don't want to go with the defaults then there are plenty of customisation options. For instance, you've got the option to enable various "testing" or "debugging" repositories and towards the end of the install you can disable or enable services like the firewall and SSH (the default is to have the firewall enabled and SSH disabled).
I was particularly impressed with the partitioning tool. The installer suggested a different layout from the one I got when I installed Leap 15.0 - instead of a separate XFS /home partition the installer now gave me a single Btrfs root partition. If you prefer a custom layout you can select either a "guided" or "expert" partitioner. The former asks you a series of questions to guide you through the partitioning step-by-step while the latter option is a full-fledged partitioner that assumes you know what you are doing.
My main tweak to the default set-up was that I chose to encrypt my laptop's hard drive. Here I ran into a slightly annoying issue: when I boot my laptop I have to enter the encryption password twice: first to get to the GRUB bootloader and then to decrypt the root partition. There is some information on the wiki about this issue but the suggested solution didn't work for me.
I also had a quick look GNOME, which is my preferred desktop environment. The GNOME version is 3.26.2, which is the exact same version that was used in Leap 15.0. The desktop has very few customisations (all extensions are disabled) and the default session uses Wayland rather than X.Org. Other sessions are available, including GNOME on X.Org, GNOME Classic and SLE Classic. The latter is presumably the desktop that is shipped in SUSE Linux Enterprise. It has a more traditional layout, with a single panel at the bottom of the screen. Interestingly, the SLE Classic option also uses Wayland by default.
openSUSE 15.1 -- The GNOME desktop, running the GNOME SLE session, and lots of aliases
(full image size: 125kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Whereas the main desktops are near-standard implementations, the command line experience has been customised: openSUSE seems to like aliases. I am not a great fan of distros adding lots of aliases, in particular if they do things such as adding the -i option to rm. The aliases in openSUSE shouldn't get in your way, and there are a few I quite like. Using "..." to navigate up two directories is quite handy and linking "ls-l" to "ls -l" neatly deals with the sort of typos I make too often.
Software and package management
Leap ships with a fair amount of pre-installed software. Among others, you get Firefox (the extended support release), KMail, the full LibreOffice suite, GIMP, digiKam, Dragon Player, VLC and the Konsole terminal emulator. The only applications I missed were a password manager and a torrent client.
openSUSE 15.1 -- LibreOffice Writer, VLC and system information
(full image size: 267kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
openSUSE's Plasma desktop comes with two graphical applications for managing software: Discover and YaST. I was not overly impressed with Discover. I found the navigation a little awkward and applications were listed in random order. To give an example, when I opened Discover the first three applications that were presented to me were GNU Emacs, GNOME Tweaks and Simple Scan - I doubt the average user will want to install any of those applications; GNOME Tweaks won't tweak Plasma and there is already a KDE scanning application installed (Skanlite).
Another is that Discover failed to install Flatpak applications. I could enable the Flathub repository via Discover's settings menu but installing Flatpaks didn't work, for no apparent reason. Discover would typically show it was installing an application (and sometimes causing a high system load) and then quietly fail.
openSUSE 15.1 -- Discover busy not installing the Sublime Text flatpak
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The YaST software manager is more traditional and more advanced, although it doesn't have support for Flatpaks either. For "normal" applications YaST worked much better though. For example, Discover listed just three web browsers in the category "Internet > Web Browsers" (Firefox, Falkon and SeaMonkey). YaST showed many more browsers, including Chromium and Konqueror.
Interestingly, the set-up instructions for openSUSE on the Flathub website state that "Flatpak applications can only be installed using the graphical Software application on either Tumbleweed or Leap 15.0 and later". Perhaps the site means Flatpaks only work with the GNOME Software application as, speaking generically, I found the opposite was true: the graphical software managers didn't handle Flatpaks but I could install them via the command line just fine.
openSUSE 15.1 -- Sublime Text as a Flatpak
(full image size: 326kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Speaking of the command line, you can also manage software via zypper. I found zypper easy to use and, compared with Fedora's DNF, relatively fast.
By default openSUSE doesn't ship with proprietary codecs but, as with other distros, you can install them by enabling a third-party repository. For openSUSE, the place to go is the Unofficial Guide to openSUSE Leap. You can either click a button to get your codecs via YaST or copy and paste a couple of zypper commands.
YaST and Snapper
YaST is a graphical front-end for working with settings and services that require admin privileges. Options include everything from managing software to partitioning and configuring the firewall. I personally didn't find YaST particularly useful. I don't, for instance, need a graphical interface to view the output of systemctl and journalctl commands, and I am used to working with firewalld on the command line. I did use YaST to try to get my printer to print and the utility was fairly helpful; it did various checks before pointing me to the /var/logs/cups/error_log file (which, unfortunately, didn't solve the issue - I needed to install a driver from the manufacturer. The driver isn't available for openSUSE, and manually installing the RPM failed because of dependency issues).
openSUSE 15.1 -- Viewing journalctl entries via YaST
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In general, I find YaST useful as an extra layer of protection. It is all too easy to break things when administrating an operating system, in particular when you rely on information from some random website that may be incorrect or out of date. YaST's graphical interface will prevent many such blunders. I am glad YaST exists and after using openSUSE for a week it seems odd that other distros don't have a similar settings menu.
I was more interested in Snapper, which is openSUSE's tool for managing Btrfs snapshots. You can use Snapper to create snapshots of your Btrfs file system, check differences between snapshots and roll back unwanted changes. How this works is best illustrated with an example. As a test I installed Apache and PHP and created a simple PHP file on my localhost to confirm that everything was working correctly. I then wanted to change some settings in Apache's configuration file. As that is a risky operation I first created a "pre" snapshot:
# snapper create --type pre --print-number --description "Before php.ini tweaks" --cleanup-algorithm number
The --print-number option returns the snapshot ID (in my case 48), which you need for the "post" snapshot. I then edited the config file and took the "post" snapshot:
# snapper create --type post --pre-number 48 --description "After php.ini tweaks" --cleanup-algorithm number
After restarting Apache I found that - surprise, surprise - I had broken my localhost. Instead of displaying PHP files Apache suddenly asked me what I wanted to do with the PHP file I had requested (i.e. open it in Kate or save it to the disk). Running "snapper diff 48..49" quickly revealed the issue: I had disabled PHP support by changing "engine = On" to "engine = Off". To undo that change I could simply run "snapper undochange 48..49" (and reboot the system).
openSUSE 15.1 -- Using Snapper to debug an error in Apache's php.ini file
(full image size: 285kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The same way I could roll back system updates we can also use Snapper for the home directory, which is part of my Btrfs root partition, I first needed to create a config for "home" (using "snapper -c home create-config /home"). After that I could take snapshots of my home directory and undo any changes I made.
The examples just scratch the surface of Snapper but I hope it demonstrates just how powerful the tool is. If you want to find out more, a good place to start is the Snapper portal on the openSUSE wiki.
Transactional server (with a desktop environment)
I mentioned earlier that there are two Leap server versions that can be installed via the ISO: you can deploy either a standard or transactional server. The latter uses Btrfs and Snapper to provide transactional (also known as "atomic") updates that can be rolled back should anything go wrong. Put simply, instead of updating packages on the running system updates are applied by creating a new snapshot and you can then boot into the new snapshot (or roll back to a previous one). It is similar to what Fedora is doing with Silverblue (which I wrote about last year) but there are a few differences: openSUSE's transactional server doesn't use rpm-ostree, and zypper is still used in the background as the package manager (in Silverblue Fedora's DNF package manager has been removed completely).
Another difference is that Silverblue is focused on the desktop, whereas openSUSE's transactional server is very much focused on servers (the clue is in the name). However, I thought it would be interesting to install the transactional server in GNOME Boxes and then install a desktop environment. As my test laptop has only 4GB of memory I decided to install the relatively light-weight MATE desktop:
# transactional-update pkg install patterns-mate-mate
This will install everything you need to get a working desktop environment. You may need to make sure that the target unit is set to "graphical" (the old runlevel 5) and you probably want to disable automatic updates/reboots:
# systemctl set-default graphical.target
# systemctl disable rebootmgr.service
# systemctl disable transactional-update.timer
Once you are up and running you can update your system with "transactional-update up". Installing packages is done using "transactional-update pkg install <package>. For instance, as a test I installed the Leafpad text editor with "transactional-update pkg install leafpad".
When you install a package a new snapshot is created. To start using the new snapshot you need to reboot your machine.
openSUSE 15.1 -- Leafpad installed on the transactional server (running the MATE desktop)
(full image size: 226kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I didn't come across any unexpected issues while running the MATE desktop on top of the transactional server. One thing to be aware of, though, is that the YaST software manager won't work. After I had installed Leafpad the software manager correctly listed the application as being installed but trying to remove it triggered an error (as the command "zypper remove leafpad" no longer works).
openSUSE 15.1 -- Trying to uninstall Leafpad via YaST's software manager
(full image size: 86kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I have no idea if openSUSE has any plans for building a transactional desktop operating system. I would certainly be interested - it was a lot of fun!
Conclusions
Leap 15.1 is a relatively minor upgrade from 15.0. As the Leap 15.x series will be supported for another two years the software will slowly get more out of date. Both the kernel and systemd version in Leap 15.1 are the same versions that were used in 15.0, though some graphics hardware support has been ported from the 4.19 kernel to openSUSE's 4.12 kernel. The Plasma desktop was bumped to a slightly newer version, while the GNOME desktop is still stuck at 3.26.2. Of course, this is not a criticism. I am only pointing out that Leap is very much a distro that aims to be stable and reliable. If you want more up to date software then you may want to consider Tumbleweed.
The distro itself is indeed rock solid. The only real issue I encountered was that I couldn't resolve the issue with my printer. That is not something openSUSE can be blamed for but it is worth noting that a smaller distro such as openSUSE may not be on the radar of companies that write proprietary drivers.
In general, I feel there are a few things that could be improved: I was unable to install Flatpaks via the graphical software managers; it is annoying that I have enter the password to decrypt the hard drive twice during the boot process and the upgrade from 15.0 to 15.1 involved quite a bit of manual work. Other than that I was very happy with openSUSE Leap.
Most of this review was about the features that make openSUSE stand out from the crowd: YaST, Btrfs and Snapper. YaST is a tool that really should be adopted by other distros - the option to perform various advanced administrative tasks via a graphical interface is fantastic. The Btrfs file system and Snapper worked perfectly fine and I found it easy to get started with snapshots.
Because of openSUSE's many unique features the distro does have a fairly steep learning curve. That is all the more true for the transactional server, which builds on top of Btrfs and Snapper to enable atomic updates. Thankfully, I found that, by and large, openSUSE's documentation is excellent.
Finally, if you are interested in openSUSE then you might want to listen to episode 122 of the Destination Linux podcast - it features a long interview with Richard Brown, who is the distro's chairman.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Z570 laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2350M, 2.3GHz
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Wireless network adaptor: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285
- Wired network adaptor: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E 05)
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Visitor supplied rating
openSUSE has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.8/10 from 456 review(s).
Have you used openSUSE? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE 42 approaches end of life, FreeBSD's status report, DragonFly BSD reduces media size
Marcus Meissner has published a reminder to openSUSE users that openSUSE 42 will soon reach the end of its supported life. "On June 30th 2019 the openSUSE Leap 42 release series will reach its end of life, after 4 years of lifetime (42.1 was released in fall 2015). openSUSE Leap 42.3 will receive no further maintenance or security updates after that date. It is recommended for openSUSE Leap users to upgrade to the recently released openSUSE Leap 15.1. Deployments with software that relies on Leap 42 technology and cannot be moved to 15 right now may consider evaluating a (commercial) SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP4 subscription and migrate the workload to SUSE Linux Enterprise. With the upcoming SP5, SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 receives maintenance and support until 2027."
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The FreeBSD project has published a status report which provides summaries of changes and new developments to the operating system and its infrastructure. A couple of key changes include testing unified package management of the base system and ports, using the LLVM linker as the default FreeBSD linker, work going into improving the project's FUSE support, and efforts to improve FreeBSD's Secure Boot support. "UEFI Secure Boot support, developed by Semihalf, has been merged with sjg's Veriexec support, resulting in a unified library named libsecureboot. This library is used for verification of kernel and modules by the loader. The library uses BearSSL as the cryptographic backend. The library supports loading trusted and blacklisted certificates from UEFI (DB/DBx databases) and can use them as trust anchors for the verification. The library is also used by Veriexec to verify and parse the authentication database (called 'manifest') in the kernel. Previously the manifest was verified and parsed by a userspace application, then sent to the kernel via /dev/veriexec, which was a significant limitation and a security weakness." Further information can be found in the project's Quarterly Status Report.
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Typically an operating system's install media grows from one release to the next as more features, options and languages are added. The DragonFly BSD team is fighting that tend and reducing the size of packages on the operating system's media. "The next release of DragonFly should be smaller; Sascha Wildner and Rimvydas Jasinskas have removed or substituted enough packages on the installer image to drop the package disk usage 50%." Details on how this was done can be found in a mailing list post.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Improving boot times
Getting-up-and-running-faster asks: Is there is a tool which shows the services that are slowing down boot time? How can I find stalled processes and speed up my boot times?
DistroWatch answers: There are methods for discovering which processes are slowing down the boot process. Most distributions these days run the systemd init software and, assuming your distribution uses systemd, there is a special utility for analyzing the boot process and the time services take to start-up. To confirm your distribution uses systemd, run the following command in a terminal, it will let you know whether your operating system is running systemd.
grep systemd /proc/1/comm && echo I am using systemd || echo I am not using systemd
Distributions using systemd can run the following command to see which processes start at boot time and how long each takes to get up and running:
systemd-analyze blame
The output will be a list of start-up services, sorted in order by how much time they take to get up and running. It may look like this:
14.732s networkd-dispatcher.service
2.887s systemd-logind.service
2.874s snapd.service
2.859s wpa_supplicant.service
2.839s rsyslog.service
2.788s lm-sensors.service
2.416s polkit.service
1.392s systemd-sysusers.service
1.377s systemd-resolved.service
1.077s lightdm.service
The systemd-analyze program can also show bottlenecks in start-up performance. The following command shows services starting up with indicators of at what time they started and how long they took to start:
systemd-analyze critical-chain
The output from the critical chain parameter may look like this:
multi-user.target @32.439s
- networkd-dispatcher.service @17.696 +14.732s
- basic.target @17.652s
- sockets.target @17.651s
The numbers after the "@" symbol show when the target was reached and the number after the "+" shows how long a service took to start. In the above examples we can see that the networkd-dispatcher service is taking an unusually long time (14.7 seconds) to start, which is roughly half the total boot time. We may need to fix its configuration or figure out why it is taking so long to complete its tasks.
Alternatively, we might want to start networkd-dispatcher sooner rather than when it is needed. systemd can start background services either when they are needed (on demand) or in parallel. Enabling a background service which takes longer to boot can get it started sooner and possibly reduce the overall boot time. We can enable a service as follows:
systemctl enable networkd-dispatcher
In my case networkd-dispatcher was already enabled so this would not improve my boot times. Another way to go is to disable a service we do not need from the start-up process. Basically turning off services we do not use. For instance, I do not think I will need networkd-dispatcher so I can turn it off with the following command:
systemctl disable networkd-dispatcher
I then rebooted and re-ran the "systemd-analyze critical-chain" command and found my boot times improved by six seconds. Here is my list of start-up services with the problematic program disabled:
multi-user.target @26.031s
- kerneloops.service 26.031s +247ms
- network-online.target @25.989s
Basically, one of the easiest ways to improve boot times is to figure out which services are running that we do not need and disable them, or uninstall them. The systemd-analyze utility is great at identifying not only which services start, but which ones are causing the most delays.
While the above options work with distributions running systemd, should we find ourselves using a distribution that runs another implementation of init, such as SysV init, then we can look for clues as to what is slowing down the boot process in the /var/log/boot log file. The log file is more crude than systemd's analyzing utility, but it will show when services are starting. Since SysV init services tend to start in groups, seeing gaps in service start times will tell us which group of services are slowing down the process. For instance, in the following log entries we can see a long gap (three seconds) between two services starting, which suggests a bottleneck:
Fri Apr 26 10:25:20 2019: [....] CPUFreq Utilities: Setting ondemand CPUFreq governor...CPU0...CPU1... ok
Fri Apr 26 10:25:21 2019: [....] Starting network connection manager: NetworkManager ok
Fri Apr 26 10:25:24 2019: [....] Starting NetBIOS name server: nmbd ok
Once again, we can look at either improving the service's configuration or disabling it from starting at boot time.
For people running spinning hard drives, if the necessary resources are available, one of the easiest ways to improve boot times is by switching to using a solid state drive (SSD). SSDs are better at reading small, randomly placed files which tends to improve start-up times.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
NetBSD 8.1
NetBSD is a free, secure, and highly portable UNIX-like open source operating system available for many CPU platforms. The project's latest release is NetBSD 8.1 which provides minor improvements and enhancements over NetBSD 8.0. The project's release announcement reports: "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 8.1, the first update of the NetBSD 8 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Some highlights of the 8.1 release are: x86: Mitigation for INTEL-SA-00233 (MDS). Various local user kernel data leaks fixed. x86: new rc.conf(5) setting smtoff to disable Simultaneous Multi-Threading. Various network driver fixes and improvements. Fixes for thread local storage (TLS) in position independent executables (PIE). Fixes to reproducible builds. Fixed a performance regression in tmpfs. DRM/KMS improvements. bwfm(4) wireless driver for Broadcom FullMAC PCI and USB devices added. Various sh(1) fixes. mfii(4) SAS driver added. dhcpcd(8) updated to 7.2.2. httpd(8) updated." A complete list of changes can be found in NetBSD's changes file.
Zorin OS 15
The Zorin team have announced a new version of Zorin OS, an Ubuntu-based distribution with a Windows-theme desktop environment. The project's new version, Zorin OS 15, ships with Zorin Connect (based on KDE Connect) for sharing information between devices, improved performance, and scheduled theme changes: "We've designed the desktop to better adapt to the environment around you, so using Zorin OS is more comfortable throughout the day. Zorin Auto Theme is a new feature which automatically switches the desktop theme into Dark mode at sunset and back to light mode after sunrise. You can enable Zorin Auto Theme by opening the Zorin Appearance app and clicking the middle Background option in the newly-redesigned Zorin theme switcher. A new adaptive desktop background option has also been introduced, which automatically changes to match the brightness and colors of the environment at every hour of the day. Night Light is also new to Zorin OS 15, which gradually reduces the amount of blue light emitted by the screen at night. It can be enabled from the Displays panel in the Settings app. Not only do these features reduce eye strain and make it more comfortable to use your computer, they also help maintain your body's natural circadian rhythm, helping you to sleep better and wake up refreshed the next day." Further details and screenshots can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Zorin OS 15 -- Zorin's default deskop and application menu
(full image size: 602kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Enso OS 0.3.1
Enso OS is a Linux distribution based on Xubuntu. Enso features the Xfce desktop with Gala, imported from elementary OS, as the default window manager. The project's latest release, Enso OS 0.3.1, is based on packages from Ubuntu 18.04 and features improvements to the software manager. "Built on the latest LTS release of Ubuntu, version 18.04 Enso includes all the latest security and system packages from the main Ubuntu dev branch and these packages will be supported by Ubuntu for the next 3 years. The most notable changes for this minor release are within our application management tool (a fork of the elementary project's brilliant AppCenter). The home page has been adapted have a cleaner look with the category selector moving to a list view on the left-hand side, a few colour changes to the view and the addition of the Games category. Starring of your favourite applications is now possible through the application view, this will allow us to determine which applications are deemed most helpful by our users and will in time be the driving factor of which applications are displayed on the home page, so start starring!" Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,442
- Total data uploaded: 25.9TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Boot times
In our Questions and Answers column we talked about ways to examine and improve start-up times. Boot times vary a lot depending on hardware, enabled services and which init software is being used. We would like to hear how long it takes to get your computer up and running, from the time you power it on until it arrives at the login screen.
You can see the results of our previous survey on when our readers first discovered DistroWatch in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Boot times
| My computer starts in under 5 seconds: | 129 (7%) |
| My computer starts in 6-15 seconds: | 554 (32%) |
| My computer starts in 16-30 seconds: | 455 (26%) |
| My computer starts in 31-60 seconds: | 313 (18%) |
| My computer starts in 60+ seconds: | 218 (12%) |
| Unsure: | 80 (5%) |
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| Website News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- Resilient Linux. Resilient Linux is a Debian-based distribution for workstations and servers which features a read-only filesystem for the operating system to protect against attacks and corruption. The filesystem may be encrypted at install time for additional privacy.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 June 2019. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • OpenSuSe (by Toriyama on 2019-06-10 00:24:55 GMT from Mali)
How they went from 42 to 15 ? There is a meaning for it ?
2 • My computer starts in ... (by Some Guy on 2019-06-10 00:28:42 GMT from Austria)
...less than a minute. And it's usually weeks between reboots.
Why again, am I supposed to be thrilled about systemd?
3 • Start Up Time (by fa - flyingalone on 2019-06-10 00:35:56 GMT from Australia)
I voted unsure
Have auto login and disabled grub delay
So power on > sit down > enjoy
Superfast
4 • Boot time on my ASUS i7 laptop running Mint 19.1.. (by Az4x4 on 2019-06-10 01:02:17 GMT from United States)
From press the start button to up and running my ASUS i7 laptop running Linux Mint 19.1 Mate' takes about 12 seconds. No complaints here..
5 • Boot timing (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2019-06-10 01:14:16 GMT from United States)
Might be wise to consider spinning rust (vs. SSD) and other slow(er) things.
…
(What, no mention of bootchart (by bootchart.org)?)
6 • Boot time (by DaveW on 2019-06-10 01:22:36 GMT from United States)
5 year-old homebuilt running Linux Mint Mate 18.3 boots to the login screen in 22 sec.
7 • does boot time really matter.. (by Brad on 2019-06-10 01:43:57 GMT from United States)
When you don't reboot much? I mean 13 seconds(my ssd w/archlinux & KDE plasma) from power on til entering password.
If you don't reboot much... why does it matter.. specially if the difference is just less than a minute?
Unless you're using an older than 10 yr computer w/ 2gb or less ram w/ a mechanical hard drive... boot time, "bloat", and tweaking wont get you much more than a few secs if that.. am i right? (at least this is my limited experience)
8 • @1 OpenSuSe (by Paul Nodine on 2019-06-10 02:32:46 GMT from United States)
They changed to 15 to match Suse Linux Enterprise version number since Leap is based off Suse Linux Enterprise
9 • boot times (by Titus_Groan on 2019-06-10 02:38:35 GMT from New Zealand)
I can wrangle my old Compaq c700 down to less than 15 sec (by watch) to login greeter. ok, it has a SSD, and it is only used occasionally. I use it for testing promising distros, but no mainstream ones can get close to that "out of the box" .
10 • @1 - from openSUSE 13.x to 42.x to 15.x (by eco2geek on 2019-06-10 02:38:46 GMT from United States)
> How they went from 42 to 15 ? There is a meaning for it ?
After openSUSE 13.x, they decided to re-brand it "openSUSE Leap" and use the version number 42. "42", as fans of Douglas Adams know, is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. (They also based it on SUSE Linux Enterprise.)
openSUSE Leap 15,x is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise v15.x, thus the version number.
(Source: Wikipedia)
11 • Boot time and OpenSUSE (by Friar Tux on 2019-06-10 02:57:47 GMT from Canada)
I shut my laptop down every night, Just a habit. When I turn it on in the morn, I hit the switch and go about my morning rituals. When I get back to the laptop it's ready to roll. (I use autologin.) So I don't really know, or care, how long it takes.
Re: OpenSUSE... like Jesse, I have tried it a number of times but can only use it for a short time. For some reason I can never get Yast to play nice. I have a couple of programmes that I cannot do without (Orage Calendar, and Cherrytree), and while they are in the repository, Yast simply refuses to install ANY new software. As a test, I tried installing a simple text editor. Yast freezes or quits every single time I try to install anything. In fact, any OS I have tried that uses Yast, it is always the same. Anyone have any ideas as to why?
12 • Boot Time (by Semiarticulate on 2019-06-10 03:08:09 GMT from United States)
My computer boots much faster than it REboots, thanks to systemfuckingd. I guess we were never promised fast shutdowns.
And do people still care about this $#@!? I don't understand why this is a thing to obsess over.
13 • This week's Poll 'startup times' (by saltygreysoup on 2019-06-10 04:40:31 GMT from Australia)
24 seconds to login screen, MX-18 on Dell 9010 (i7-3770 with ssd), that's after selecting MX at grub screen.
14 • OpenSUSE Leap 15.1 (by Microlinux on 2019-06-10 05:39:43 GMT from France)
I'm running OpenSUSE Leap 15.1 with KDE on my workstation and on my laptop. I've experimented a bit with upgrading, and I found an easy procedure that works well with third-party repos enabled and doesn't involve transactional updates. I've documented it on my blog.
https://www.microlinux.fr/opensuse-leap-update-15-1/
Your mileage may vary of course.
15 • Improve boot time (by debianxfce on 2019-06-10 06:24:04 GMT from Finland)
Remove unused services and use a non debug 1000Hz timer kernel. A non debug kernel boots many seconds faster even with a ssd.
16 • Boot time (by Antonie van der Tweel on 2019-06-10 06:29:14 GMT from Netherlands)
I voted unsure, and did a timed startup later. 64 seconds, including 16 seconds for a hardwaretest. Machine is 5 years old, runs debian 8 from a mechanical hard disk. BTW, it shuts down in under 3 seconds.
17 • Bootup times (by Hoos on 2019-06-10 08:29:00 GMT from Singapore)
Time between selecting distro at grub screen to login screen:
Mint 18 on SSD - around 5 sec (systemd)
MX 16 on SSD - around 5 sec (sysV)
Various other distros on hard drive (systemd or non-systemd distros) - anywhere between 12 to 20 seconds.
Boot splash - some distros have it while others don't.
Conclusion: the time difference is calculated in mere seconds. Frankly, who cares?
18 • boot time (by anticapitalista on 2019-06-10 08:59:06 GMT from Greece)
9 secs from grub to working desktop, including connected wifi - using antiX-17 on an i5 thinkpad with 8GB RAM and ssd)
19 • Boot Times (by P Tyerman on 2019-06-10 09:02:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
My Core i7 system takes about a minute to boot including login, there is a number of services that start up though.
Doesn't really matter to me, I wouldn't care if it took 5 minutes to boot, I don't spend all day rebooting my system! I probably reboot once or twice a week on average.
It does shut down in less than 5 seconds though.
20 • Zorin... (by xchris on 2019-06-10 10:15:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
Zorin is a fantastic distro, I had various issues with Ubuntu on my laptop (thinkpad yoga 11e) 19.04 froze from time to time and I could not install the 18.04 LTS , "errno 5" while I was trying to install on SSD, no issue with the SSD btw, I could install any friggin OS but not that Ubuntu, very likely its a bug. So, finally I installed Zorin 15 and everything is fine , well I am not expecting support out of the box on features like automatic screen rotation or disable the kbd when on "tent" mode, but things like thinkpad buttons/ touchscreen etc all work fine under Zorin.
21 • OpenSuse Review (by Jordan on 2019-06-10 11:46:33 GMT from United States)
Portions of that review seemed strange, to me. "..smaller distro.." Huh? What's "small" about it?
"The only real issue I encountered was that I couldn't resolve the issue with my printer. That is not something openSUSE can be blamed for but it is worth noting that a smaller distro such as openSUSE may not be on the radar of companies that write proprietary drivers."
I've run into this printer driver issue very seldom in the past several years, and mostly with the simple fix of hitting the repositories (often for a package that is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation but found mentioned in user forums).
I don't have suse running now (fooling around with Fedora 30 at the moment), but never have been able to keep it for long due to many issues, which always disappointed and surprised me, given the size of the distro. It's a big distro, in popularity and just in its place in the linux world for years and years; one of the oldest.
22 • boot times (by excollier on 2019-06-10 12:02:37 GMT from Ireland)
I triple boot Mint, Debian 9 and MX - so I have to choose which to boot from in Grub - around 60 seconds in all, but that's not a problem for me- why all the fuss over super fast boot times?
23 • Boot Times (by dragonmouth on 2019-06-10 12:24:40 GMT from United States)
Who cares?! I don't know how long my boot process takes and it doesn't matter to me since I rarely shutdown. Besides, what does even couple of minutes every month or so matter in the greater scheme of things? My warm restarts take about 15-20 seconds, which is not head-snapping fast but does not leave me enough time to do something else during the re-boot.
I don't see all this need for speed, other than bragging rights. It's like "My car can go 0 to 60 one tenth of a second faster than yours, Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!" Big, Fat, Hairy Deal! Of what practical use is that? So you saved 5 seconds on your boot. In those 5 seconds can you have a cup of coffee, watch a video, or even have time to scratch your butt? Will you feel better because you've had 5 more seconds of sleep?
24 • Opensuse (by Marcel on 2019-06-10 12:28:32 GMT from Netherlands)
I had an issue with my sondcard while running Leap 15. Pops everytime a sound started. Very irritating. I posted on the forum, searched the internet, but never found a decent solution for it, only other people with the same issue. So I left. And I wonder: Does 15.1 come with a cure?
25 • Boot Times (by Chris on 2019-06-10 12:57:51 GMT from United States)
I never got the obsession with boot times, especially in modern times. I'm one of those people who shuts down my system when I'm not going to use it for many hours. I have pretty fast and new hardware but I still use HDDs, and my computer still probably boots in less than a minute. (probably closer to 30 seconds, I hit "unsure" on the poll) That's good enough for me. I've owned some slow computers back in the day, where you could get a snack while it was booting and it may have been done by the time you got back. Compared to that, nothing modern takes any time at all to boot.
26 • improve boot time (by a on 2019-06-10 13:17:04 GMT from France)
A good way to improve startup and shutdown time is to use a distro that does *not* use systemd.
27 • Boot time obsession (by anticapitalista on 2019-06-10 13:39:23 GMT from Greece)
I guess I am obsessed with boot times.
I find it really strange that some linux users with the latest and greatest hardware don't mind if it takes 30 secs to 1 minute to boot (My PII windows 95 box booted in about 40 secs and that was over 20 years ago).
Surely users should expect faster boots than 20 years ago.
28 • Boot times (by JohnP on 2019-06-10 14:38:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Boot time on my Asus E402M laptop (£120) running 32 bit Xubuntu 18.04 LTS from power on to login screen is reliably 30 seconds Boot time on my desktop computer is quicker. Boot times are not an issue for me, and since I persuaded my wife to switch to Xubuntu from Windows, they are no-longer an issue for her either. ;-) In fact all is now peace and tranquillity instead of the regular rants that I used to get from her every day regarding her Windows "pos" (her words, not mine).
29 • Faster boot times (by Tim on 2019-06-10 15:12:45 GMT from United States)
My desktop system used to boot fairly slowly, even with an SSD boot disk. Most of the time, systemd-analyze identified the culprit as dhcpcd. So, I rewrote the network startup to be an automated, but hard coded process, with all dhcp functionality eliminated. Now, my system always boots in less than 5 seconds.
Of course, this would not work on a portable system, which must connect to varying LANs.
30 • Boot times (by RJA on 2019-06-10 15:53:56 GMT from United States)
@27, I think I family had an IBM Aptiva C32 with a Pentium 133 CPU and 16 MB of EDO RAM that booted faster than 40 seconds, more like around 20 or a little less.
But, I up-kept it. I defragged the hard drive of that one regularly!
Then in 2000 or 2001, I upgraded the EDO RAM capacity to 48 MB and changed the hard drive.
For me with SSDs, Windows 8.1 and 10 should boot to login, if not the desktop as well, in roughly 10 seconds. I often saw 8 seconds or similar with an SSD, IIRC.
31 • Boot time (by crimson_king on 2019-06-10 16:14:36 GMT from Brazil)
Without counting the time it takes to load the storage decryption password prompt and the optional Plymouth, it stays under 5 seconds. SSD.
32 • OpenSUSE reveiw (by Jack on 2019-06-10 16:20:51 GMT from Switzerland)
All in all a positive, although somehow odd, review of OpenSUSE. How OpenSUSE is a smaller distro? In the Linux world, OpenSUSE is rather a big player, and both, OpenSuse Leap and Tumbelweed deserve far more attention alone for their inovative features (Btrfs, Snapper, Yast etc.) I allways wish to read a review from a reviewer who has used a distribution more than a few hours! - I mean as a daily driver! This is the price the reviewer has to pay if he wants to avoid some beginner mistakes in apreciation and judgement. You want to upgrade your OpenSuse Leap? The standard way is to download the new iso, burn it to a USB stick and do the upgrade from the stick.
My experience wiht OpenSUSE Leap: it is a rock solid, stable and flexible LTS distribution. A distribution you wish to have, when doing some seriouse work.
33 • Boot times. (by Garon on 2019-06-10 18:15:27 GMT from United States)
I've got several computers I use. All of them have different boot times but none are too long, except for the one I use at work. It's a newer HP EliteBook Folio 9480m with a core i7 vPro and all the bells and whistles. At work I have to use MS Windows because of the type of PLC programming I do. I never turn it off or try not to because with the company network has all this extra crap like zScaler and all the MS office junk. It taken that fine computer about five minutes from startup to desktop. Very bad, and guess what #26, it has no systemd lol. So when I hear of boot time of less then a minute I just shake my head and go on. It's so sad.
34 • Smaller distro and beginner's upgrade (by Robert Rijkhoff on 2019-06-10 19:03:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
@21 and 32 - "Smaller distribution" was a poor choice of words on my part. As I acknowledged in the introduction, openSUSE is obviously one of the big players. I was referring to the issue with getting my printer to work; it seems to me that companies that write proprietary drivers mainly target Debian/Ubuntu and Fedora/Centos. Of course, that's not to say that openSUSE is smaller than, say, Debian or Ubuntu derivatives.
@32 - "You want to upgrade your OpenSuse Leap? The standard way is to download the new iso, burn it to a USB stick and do the upgrade from the stick."
openSUSE gives Leap users the option to upgrade via zypper. I don't see why it is a "beginner mistake" to try out that feature and write about it in the review. And yes, I did try openSUSE for more than a few hours. In fact, it's still installed on my laptop and I'm considering making it my daily driver.
35 • Boot times (continued) (by RJA on 2019-06-10 20:41:58 GMT from United States)
@33, if that's a laptop, I bet the HDD is failing. I saw something similar, even when there wasn't that much other software installed, if at all. With the laptop HDD I dealt with, it seems that wiping the drive, repartitioning, reformatting and reinstalling everything solves the problem, but there's a good chance that the symptoms will be back within a few months.
About 5 minutes? Being that long, sounds like the HDD interface board is bad or there's a bad ATA cable connection, and that makes Windows go to PIO mode, IIRC. (4 MB/s or 5 MB/s most of the time. That would make almost every single thing you do, slow!)
(or buggy HDD firmware)
I also seen Windows 8 on a laptop hang for no good reason, apparently. :(
36 • Boot times (by Bob on 2019-06-10 21:23:06 GMT from Australia)
It's 2019, if your OS can't boot in about 5 secs I will use something else.
37 • @35: (by dragonmouth on 2019-06-10 21:42:58 GMT from United States)
Even though time is money in a corporate environment, workstations for employees are rarely optimized for speed and efficiency. The mandate of corporate IT departments is not fast startup times, it is uniformity of software across the board. Every laptop and desktop has to have installed the same basic suite of applications that all employees will use. Each computer will also have installed a suite of anti-malware software. AND every computer will have employee-tracking applications installed. It takes time for all that software to load at boot time. Then there is the question of whether all those sundry applications play nice with each other or do they step all over each other. If an employee can document the need for specialized applications, those may be installed, adding to startup times.
After having spent many years in corporate IT departments, I am not surprised at 5 minute startups even on top of the line computers.
38 • Boot and shutdown times (by TheTKS on 2019-06-10 23:47:38 GMT from Canada)
I answered 31-60 seconds, but it varies per computer, OS and startup details. As long as boot time is not much more than a minute, I don't care, and I shut down my computers whenever I'm done using them. I usually do other things while waiting for the computer to start.
But I was curious, so I checked anyway.
My newest desktop multiboots Slackware 14.2, elementary Juno, and Ubuntu 18.04 on HDD. Ubuntu is soon to be removed in favour of Xubuntu 18.04, which I've installed on an SSD added later.
My old desktop runs OpenBSD 6.5 on an even older HDD.
Fastest is Xubuntu 18.04. 22s from grub to working desktop (~15s from grub to login screen.)
Next fastest are elementary and Ubuntu, followed by Slackware.
OpenBSD takes ~1m 20s from first visible startup text to working desktop.
Shutdown on all the Ubuntu/systemd based distros is screaming fast, at under 3 sec. Slackware and OpenBSD take significantly longer to shut down.
I'm more impressed with fast shutdowns, probably because when I shut down I usually want to get going as fast as possible.
It doesn't actually matter with any of my Linuxes and OpenBSD, they always shut down reliably without intervention. But my Windows training only allows me to hope shutdown will go smoothly and not be updating... updating... updating... or just hanging.
TKS
39 • init (by M.Z. on 2019-06-11 00:42:48 GMT from United States)
@2
The big benefit in the changes in init options was never really going to end users, so why would you expect excitement? I heard it was easier for projects like Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. to package things with the new init system, & maybe it was a bit faster sometimes. The only real excitement for everyone is bad conversations about init.
40 • Boot time (by lincoln on 2019-06-11 02:41:58 GMT from Brazil)
Excellent Questions and Answers this week. With your tips (systemd-analyze critical-chain and systemctl disable) I reduced the boot time in 66%.
Previous output from the critical chain parameter:
graphical.target @7.988s
└─multi-user.target @7.988s
└─exim4.service @7.783s +203ms
└─network-online.target @7.782s
└─NetworkManager-wait-online.service @2.494s +5.287s
└─NetworkManager.service @2.087s +406ms
└─dbus.service @2.024s
└─basic.target @2.022s
└─sockets.target @2.022s
└─snapd.socket @2.018s +3ms
└─sysinit.target @2.018s
└─sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount @3.755s +3ms
└─systemd-modules-load.service @378ms +14ms
└─system.slice @364ms
└─-.slice @324ms
after I disabled postgresql.service and NetworkManager-wait-online.service:
graphical.target @2.685s
└─multi-user.target @2.685s
└─exim4.service @2.470s +214ms
└─network-online.target @2.469s
└─network.target @2.468s
└─NetworkManager.service @2.090s +340ms
└─dbus.service @2.017s
└─basic.target @2.014s
└─sockets.target @2.014s
└─snapd.socket @2.013s +436us
└─sysinit.target @2.011s
└─systemd-timesyncd.service @1.837s +173ms
└─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @1.783s +37ms
└─local-fs.target @1.780s
└─home.mount @1.759s +20ms
└─systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-4010cc1f\x2d56ca\x2d436b\x2d8b1a\x2da3ff9590d589.
└─dev-disk-by\x2duuid-4010cc1f\x2d56ca\x2d436b\x2d8b1a\x2da3ff9590d589.device @1.6
41 • Boot Times - #4 (by R O on 2019-06-11 03:55:10 GMT from United States)
I am running Mint 19.1 Mate as you are, on a Dell Inspiron 7000-series with AMD Ryzen 5, but it takes about 40 seconds to start up. After wondering what was taking it so long, I removed the "silent" and "splash" options in the grub.cfg file for the "linux" line, and saw it taking a full 30 seconds of that time "Scanning for Btrfs", which I do not have on my SSD.
Anyone know why that would be happening?
42 • 90 sec boot process (many Linux systems) (by Greg Zeng on 2019-06-11 03:55:21 GMT from Australia)
All my Linux operating systems on the one notebook computer share the one SSD swap partition. But there is this 90 second delay. How do I bypass this? I don't like CLI, though Linux forces me to use it often.
There have been mentions occasionally on this problem on the internet, but I could not find the solution yet. Other than this, some Linux systems do boot very quickly. About as fast as my four Windows-10 systems (not part of a LAN system).
43 • Boot time (by penguinx64 on 2019-06-11 04:09:22 GMT from Bahrain)
My Shuttle mini PC with a j1900 quad core Celeron, a single stick of 8gb of DDR3 memory and 2 128gb Samsung SSDs boots in 15 seconds. I'm running Linux Mint MATE. I have /, swap and /boot/efi on the first SSD and /home on the 2nd SSD. It's not 'blazing fast', but it boots faster than most Windows PC's I've used. it booted a little faster with LMDE, but I switched back to Linux Mint MATE because I like the MATE interface better.
44 • Boot time, cont... (by penguinx64 on 2019-06-11 04:58:16 GMT from United States)
My previous comment is for a power on cold boot. Rebooting is faster. Also, my comment about Linux Mint MATE is because I don't like the Cinnamon GUI as much as MATE. If LMDE was available with MATE, I'd probably use that instead.
45 • Dell Inspiron laptop drives (by RJA on 2019-06-11 05:29:48 GMT from United States)
@41, do you have a 2.5-inch HDD in there? If you do, it's probably a pathetically slow one.
I would get a WD Black HDD in there, if you need a lot of extra space. But if you can't find a 1 TB'er, I would just get an SSD. Looks like the 500 GB Samsung 860 Evo (IIRC) SSD may be the sweet spot.
46 • Huh (by RoboNuggie on 2019-06-11 06:58:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Linux User - "Hey man, my reboot start up time is 10 secs"
FreeBSD User - "What's a reboot?"
Linux User - "Systemd is ace, all those services make it so easy, who cares about unsafe practices?"
FreeBSD - "What's Systemd?"
Linux User - "So, it's only a little HiddenWasp"
FreeBSD User - Takes a sip of cool beer....
47 • boot time (by peer on 2019-06-11 07:20:07 GMT from Netherlands)
When I type systemd-analyze in the terminal I see:
Startup finished in 4.402s (kernel) + 1.507s (userspace) = 5.909s
graphical.target reached after 1.497s in userspace
48 • overclock bios? (by old on 2019-06-11 09:56:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
Bios takes longer to do its stuff than booting any OS.
now my C64, that boots instantly!
49 • Boot times (by Jordan on 2019-06-11 14:37:54 GMT from United States)
Fedora 30.. don't even bother to time cold boot.. make some tea.
Okay, 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Reboot? One minute and 12 seconds.
I'll work with it, suggested fixes. Thanks for that. I'll post differences.. if any.
50 • Boot times (by OstroL on 2019-06-11 15:46:01 GMT from Poland)
I agree with # 36
"It's 2019, if your OS can't boot in about 5 secs I will use something else."
We need to have laptops that start off a finger tip scanner. Or boots up, when you open the cover, or tap on the screen. And with a battery life of at least 8-10 hours. But, we don't have that "happiness" with Linux distros, except of course, if someone has enough money to buy high end Windows laptops, and try to dual boot. But still, the finger print scanner might not work with Linux distros.
(I have two devices, one with Windows 10, Pentium N4000, 8-9 hours and Samsung Android that pulls in ~ 12 hours -- finger print scanner and tap to start in both.) Hope, one day, I'd find such a Linux device.
51 • init? (by nanome on 2019-06-11 16:02:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
At the time of the take-over by systemd, I noticed that both Debian7 and Debian8 booted my old Pentuim 4 desktop in about 40s [wall clock time]. The boot time boast for systemd was quietly forgotten.
In response to the boot-time survey, I installed Debian 9.9 on a spare partition of my intel i3 laptop:
debian systemd 20s [1.2m sloC?]
void runit 20s [6k sloC, 650 sloS]
void sinit 5s [89 sloC, 216 sloS]
where sloC and sloS are source lines of C and sh[ell]. All boot times are up to tty login prompt.
Clearly, the 1.2m sloC are not used to make systemd any faster at booting. Perhaps they make it more secure [joke].
I persist using sinit to start my own computers as it allows me to optionally boot with a read-only root. However, if I didn't have sinit, runit would be just fine. I only wish it didn't start so many unwanted services by default.
Some of the slowest parts of any init system are determined by network bandwidth/latency. I only have spinning rust drives, so cannot comment on the impact of SSDs.
52 • BSD (by Friar Tux on 2019-06-11 16:43:49 GMT from Canada)
#46 (RoboNuggie)... Not sure why you think BSD is better. I tried a couple and got nowhere.
Tried GhostBSD19.04.iso... Fail! First time around I let it autoload (Multi-User option (Default)) and got a screen with two panels (one top, one bottom). However I could do nothing. Clicking on Applications, or Places, or System did nothing. Right clicking anywhere did nothing. The only thing that did work was pushing the Power button. It shut down the laptop. The second time around I tried the Single User option in the boot screen, but got the same result. So... not exactly out-of-box.
Also tried FreeBSD-12.0-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso... another fail. At least this once loaded on, but on reboot I got a full screen terminal that sent my to some manual page and that was it. Nothing else. No place to type in another command and any other key I hit let out this loud ‘blip’ on the speakers. Not out-of-box.
My point is, with Linux, at least I could go right to work after installing a distro.
53 • Booth times (by Jack on 2019-06-11 17:12:54 GMT from Switzerland)
@36 @50 - 5 seconds??!!!! No! I want my computer to start slowly and give me some time to have a drink befor I start working!
54 • @53 (by anticapitalista on 2019-06-11 19:13:58 GMT from Greece)
"5 seconds??!!!! No! I want my computer to start slowly and give me some time to have a drink befor I start working!"
With a 5 sec boot, you could have your drink before you turn on your computer. :)
55 • BSD continued (by Friar Tux on 2019-06-12 01:18:40 GMT from Canada)
Here are the rest of my BSD tries...
TrueOS, halfway through, the download failed - “Download Failed.” On the second attempt it failed at 99%. On the third attempt it failed near the beginning.
MidnightBSD, both the regular ISO version and the UEFI ISO version appeared to be unreadable from the usb drive as the testing laptop booted to the OS on the hard-drive.
OpenBSD, same as MidnightBSD, laptop booted to OS on hard-drive.
NomadBSD, doesn't provide an ISO image. In order to download/install it to a flash drive you have to do this involved dance with a terminal - no thanks.
Project Trident, well, I got all the way past reboot. BUT, that's where thing got hung up. First I got all kinds of FAILS. Three that I caught were ‘dhcpcd.nfe0 and dhcpcd.wlan0’ failed; something about a ‘dumpon’ fail; and a ‘can’t find host 0.freebsd.pool.ntp.org', and finally it deplayed ‘ath0: ath_legacy_rx_tasklet: sc_inreset_cnt > 0: skipping’ over and over and over (maybe twenty or thirty times) before I hit the power button. So, BSD is definitely not something you can just install and go to work with. It appears BSD is to Linux, what Linux was seen to be to Windows many years ago.
56 • @ 36: ≤ five-second boot. (by R. Cain on 2019-06-12 01:53:25 GMT from United States)
KolibriOS--5-second boot. Or less.
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090831#feature
https://kolibrios.org/en/
57 • My opinion is fast boot times due to faster hardware (by Jeromex on 2019-06-12 03:44:14 GMT from Latvia)
Else you have to 'splain how running much more code today is faster.
And that said, who cares?
I've booted a computer that required setting toggle switches and loading the first address into the program counter. Now, why, 40 years later, do I have to "administrate" a computer at all?
58 • @45, Jesse: Dell Inspiron Mint 19.1 Slow Btrfs Startup (by R O on 2019-06-12 03:54:39 GMT from United States)
@45, Jesse:
As I mentioned, the Inspiron has an SSD (M.2) already, and it did not have any Btrfs partitions. Aside from the Btrfs scan, it is blazingly fast in all other respects, including regular application use, as expected. If not for the 30 seconds scanning for Btrfs, its startup would be well under 10 seconds. The shutdowns hardly take 5 seconds.
I did go back to create a small (10GB) empty Btrfs partition, so there would be something to work with, and that maybe shaved a few seconds off that part of the startup, but still well over 20 seconds JUST for that step; the rest of the startup takes about 6-7 seconds before/after.
I tried those systemd-analyze commands per Jesse's tutorial, but they do not show anything I could see reflecting the long Btrfs scan:
sudo systemd-analyze blame
[sudo] password for xxxxxxx:
798ms ufw.service
502ms dev-sda6.device
433ms systemd-logind.service
431ms systemd-journal-flush.service
308ms NetworkManager.service
212ms systemd-timesyncd.service
209ms udisks2.service
200ms systemd-resolved.service
185ms ModemManager.service
184ms accounts-daemon.service
176ms ubuntu-system-adjustments.service
161ms networkd-dispatcher.service
159ms lm-sensors.service
159ms upower.service
154ms grub-common.service
151ms iio-sensor-proxy.service
139ms apport.service
123ms systemd-udev-trigger.service
120ms lightdm.service
114ms kerneloops.service
111ms avahi-daemon.service
108ms bluetooth.service
105ms keyboard-setup.service
101ms rsyslog.service
100ms gpu-manager.service
99ms systemd-udevd.service
91ms lvm2-monitor.service
87ms speech-dispatcher.service
85ms wpa_supplicant.service
74ms systemd-journald.service
74ms systemd-cryptsetup@cryptswap1.service
72ms thermald.service
61ms user@1000.service
61ms pppd-dns.service
59ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-BCD6\x2dAD57.service
56ms dev-hugepages.mount
56ms apparmor.service
56ms systemd-rfkill.service
53ms kmod-static-nodes.service
52ms blk-availability.service
51ms systemd-modules-load.service
50ms hddtemp.service
43ms networking.service
43ms geoclue.service
41ms packagekit.service
lines 1-45
sudo systemd-analyze critical-chain
The time after the unit is active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit takes to start is printed after the "+" character.
graphical.target @2.159s
└─lightdm.service @2.037s +120ms
└─systemd-user-sessions.service @2.025s +6ms
└─network.target @2.022s
└─NetworkManager.service @1.709s +308ms
└─dbus.service @1.685s
└─basic.target @1.630s
└─paths.target @1.629s
└─cups.path @1.621s
└─sysinit.target @1.613s
└─systemd-timesyncd.service @1.398s +212ms
└─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @1.373s +19ms
└─local-fs.target @1.366s
└─boot-efi.mount @1.352s +8ms
└─systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-BCD6\x2dAD57.service @1.290s +59ms
└─dev-disk-by\x2duuid-BCD6\x2dAD57.device @1.192s
I have a multi-boot option that includes a "stock" Ubuntu 18.04 Mate installation, and it boots up in less than 5 seconds on the same PC, so it seems to be something Mint 19.1 Mate does differently from its Ubuntu base.
Is there some way to remove Btrfs support from a standard kernel which seems to be from Ubuntu 18.04 repositories for Mint 19.1 without compiling a custom kernel? I last did (or tried...) that kind of thing maybe 20 years ago.
59 • slow btrfs startup (by nanome on 2019-06-12 07:08:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
@58: I don't think this is a question of whether BtrFS is built into the kernel. I looked at the boot logs for my throw-away Debian systemd system [see @51], and while it is there in the kernel [run "sudo grep BTRFS /boot/config*"] it does not slow boot down. Same with Void running the stock kernel.
There must be something that Mint and Ubuntu do differently when running systemd? Are the Mint forums friendly?
60 • Tell me a tale (by whoKnows on 2019-06-12 09:12:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
@ # 36 & # 50
"It's 2019, if your OS can't boot in about 5 secs I will use something else."
Yes, it's 2019 and no way in hell you'll ever see a PC booting in 5 seconds.
Unless you're cheating when measuring, even BIOS/UEFI initialization alone takes some 5 ~ 15 sec.
Rebooting (instead of fresh start) will help cheating but, even so it'll take some ±13 sec. (Win10) or ±17 ~ 20 sec. (Plasma).
Even a super-fast booter like antiX inside a VM (because it boot quicker then the real HW), on SSD, 2 Cores and 8 GB RAM will take ±10 sec.
You guys will not use something else but -- nothing at all; or accept the boot times longer then 5 sec. ;)
61 • openSuse - nice review (by Kim on 2019-06-12 09:43:28 GMT from Austria)
Thanks for the review. I just wanted to add a few things to it:
Btrfs appears to be less than useleful for normal users, so I have always installed openSuse with EXT4. Pretty happy so far, no issues whatsoever.
15.1 is rock solid indeed, while openSuse's Tumbleweed gave me some headaches before. So I went back to the 15.x versions for reliability reasons. While a rather mature kernel is no problem for me, the somewhat conservative software choices in the standard repositories are. But one can find easily newer software in the other repositories which are maintained on the openSuse web sites as well. It is also good to know that even de DE such as Qt/KDE can be modernized if desired. So the system can be sensibly tuned by adding select modern components as needed.
Other tweaks:
I don't know how a fresh install works these days. Presumably openSuse still installs nouveau for NVDIA graphics by default. Since I am not masochist enough to use nouveau I get the proprietary NVIDIA drivers as quickly as I can.
For reasonably fast internet connections it is much quicker if updates are downloaded as entire RPM packages because the somewhat slow handling of DRPM packages.
Stopped distro hopping after 15.0 came out without ever looking back :-)
62 • Tell me a tale? (by nanome on 2019-06-12 09:53:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
@60 "Unless you're cheating when measuring, even BIOS/UEFI initialization alone takes some 5 ~ 15 sec"?
I just power cycled [switched off then on, as opposed reboot] a BIOS-based laptop and couldn't measure how long it took to display the GRUB menu [sub-second]. Maybe you are talking about UEFI, which I don't use. Or maybe this pre-GRUB delay is highly hardware dependent.
63 • Boot times...or? (by akoy on 2019-06-12 10:00:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
A Samsung Tab with the Samsung DeX can be called a touch screen Linux device, where the desktop experience can be had. Even on the tablet mode, one can have many windows open with the "pop-up view" and see them, and work with them. On DeX, it works like a normal laptop with or without the attached/bluetooth keyboard.
The device just goes to sleep with the cover on. And, opens with the cover off. Finger print scanner is instantaneous. It runs the Linux kernel. The thing is, the overlay on the kernel is not the same as on the distros we are used to. So, the ability to do things, what the "normal" Linux distros just cannot do. It is good that the Linux kernel can be used in many different ways, giving us operating systems and lot of devices. These devices can do everything that a "normal" distro can do. And, they are so light!
The battery life is superb!
The idea is to have a device that runs the Linux kernel, let us do all the work, stay alive practically the whole working day and be mobile. This is after all, 2019!
The question of booting times becomes unimportant.
64 • Tell me a tale? (by nanome on 2019-06-12 10:01:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
@60: Sorry, I spoke too soon: an AMD desktop took 5 seconds to get to GRUB.
65 • @46 (by Microlinux on 2019-06-12 10:59:50 GMT from France)
More often than not, server uptimes of months and years are merely a sign of unpatched kernel vulnerabilities. Cheers from a Linux pro who also happens to like FreeBSD.
66 • Computer Start Up (by whoKnows on 2019-06-12 11:28:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
@ nanome
No need 4 'sorry'.
It's simply so, there's a 'normal' and 'abnormal' way to boot, measure and cheat.
Normal way is, BIOS/UEFI initializes itself, makes a quick check, checks all available boot devices and displays manufacturers logo.
Depending on the brand, that takes a couple of seconds at least and in some cases, up to 15 ~20 sec.
Then comes the Grub which waits another 5 sec (default setting in most distributuons).
You can, of course, set your BIOS/UEFI not to check itself, disable manufacturers logo, set HD as first and only boot device and set Grub to '0' (zero) and, in some casesand OS, enable 'quick boot' but, this is all you normaly wouldn't want to do.
So, actually a normal boot will always take some 20, 25 ~ 40, 50 sec.
And ... do you measure the time to log in screen, or to the full desktop or until desktop is ready (delayed autostart applications) ...
I don't really care for the seconds -- I always press the button, make myself coffee and go to smoke a cigarette, come back, type my password and log in and go to make myself a coffee and take another cigarette and when I come, the screensaver is running ...
Then I think for a moment if, I should take another coffee and a cigarette ...
;)
67 • Linux kernel + overlay (distro) (by OstroL on 2019-06-12 11:49:19 GMT from Poland)
As Linux is a kernel, and any "overlay" that runs with it, make the operating system that we use. It could be "distros" as here at DWW, which we have to install on computer or a device that comes with a operating system on it, say SoC. So, Android is a Linux operating system, using the Linux kernel. We sort of don't like to remember that or get reminded of it.
I am using (testing) DeX, and on a separate touch screen monitor. Interestingly, the device can work separately, and the DeX on the external monitor can work separately, giving me 2 OSs at the same time. A long awaited Linux experience! (You can find that experience shown in videos at Utube.) If I am ambidextrous, then I could send a email with the left hand while doing another work with the right hand. Lovely!
Who'd care about boot up times, really!
68 • Computer Start Up (by nanome on 2019-06-12 12:29:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
@whoKnows: all my computers are HP and I use the boot options they provide as default [boot from cdrom, usb then hd]. I will explore whether the various BIOSs allow any extended check options.
As I do not put a "delay" command in my "/boot/grub/grub.cfg" file, I do not get any delay other than making a manual selection from the list.
My "daily driver" machine only gets power-cycled when a serious kernel upgrade needs installing [weeks or months]. However, as I develop initrd and init systems on a spare machine, there will be times when a 5s power-cycle time is most welcome!
69 • An excellent Linux distro (by OstroL on 2019-06-12 14:29:36 GMT from Poland)
Even though we try to ignore the fact that Android is a Linux distro, but works differently than the "standard" Linux distros, it is open source, so many developers can easily add their own UI and other features. I use an older Nexus 6 that gets updates for AOSP Pie 9 every month from a nice developer, keeping the old, but excellent device alive. Lately got myself a Samsung DeX tablet. None of them need to be booted/rebooted everyday. We need Linux devices that can get apps that would work in any device and manufacturer-agnostic, distro developer-agnostic.
We can't get that from our "normal" distro developers. A .deb won't work with a .rpm, or .whatever and vice versa. Fragmentation would kill, if not today, someday. Still, we have a Linux OS that works in all kinds of devices and with all kinds of apps working in all kinds of devices. And, that is Linux's real success!
Canonical once tried to get into the mobile market and to have an OS that's work everywhere. But it tried to achieve that from the "normal" distro. Tried to create an overlay, but failed. And, dropped the interest on the desktop and moving to IoTs.
Some guys sort of forked Unity 8 to create a mobile OS, but are stuck on few old devices. Purism is trying to create a mobile OS from the "normal" distro. Both are going to fail, for both wants to create a competitor to Android, simply forgetting that Android is also based on the Linux kernel. They also forget that every developer uses the AOSP, not something closed source. The "distro" those 4 guys, Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White started then, gave Linux the best possible user range today, dethroning iOS, putting away Microsoft mobile completely. Their product didn't make others fight each other, but put lot of people together, giving communication to every part in the world. That's Linux's success!
Btw, I wrote this in DeX, on WPS Word, copied and pasted here. I didn't use a physical keypad, only the popup keypad. Words misspelled got autocorrected. The tablet lying on the lap, not breaking the lap with its weight and heating. From yesterday evening, it still has 20% battery. Lovely!
70 • Boot times of Linux distros on computers made for another OS (by OstroL on 2019-06-12 20:46:31 GMT from Poland)
There's really no need to argue/discuss on the boot times of Linux distros on computers made for another OS platform. Even the machines that are sold as dedicated Linux computers are originally designed to run Windows. The parts are designed to run that OS, even on those Clevo machines. I don't think, there's computer parts manufacturer, who is ready to build them, only to run Linux distros. So, we run Linux distros on borrowed machines, even if they come without an OS, or no-os.
Every Linux kernel update is to try to match hardware made for for another OS. And, the Linux kernel gets larger and larger, or gets bloated. With iOS or Android, the computer hardware is made for the OS, not the other way. The same with Windows. But, we have to borrow a machine to run mainline Linux distros. Something is always missing in those machines for those distros, something is not working.
We are actually discussing the boot times of Linux distros on computers that are not made for them.
71 • @57: yes I am wondering why adminitstrates in 2019 (by Vim Laader on 2019-06-12 20:48:34 GMT from Netherlands)
Find Jesse writing:
"I personally didn't find YaST particularly useful. I don't, for instance, need a graphical interface to view the output of systemctl and journalctl commands, and I am used to working with firewalld on the command line."
butt than:
" YaST is a tool that really should be adopted by other distros - the option to perform various advanced administrative tasks via a graphical interface is fantastic."
???
und also #11:
"Yast freezes or quits every single time I try to install anything. In fact, any OS I have tried that uses Yast, it is always the same."
Please to halt nue until das alt werken, ja?
72 • openSUSE, openChameleon, Chameleon, Leap, Tumbleweed ... (by whoKnows on 2019-06-13 06:34:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
or:
sudo rm -rf /
What will be, will be ... or not.
https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/openSUSE-Projekt-will-eigene-Foundation-und-erwaegt-Namens-und-Logo-Aenderung-4444959.html
I'll not miss it.
73 • @ 70 • Boot times of Linux distros on computers made for another OS (by R. Cain on 2019-06-13 15:11:42 GMT from United States)
"...We are actually discussing the boot times of Linux distros on computers that are not made for them."
This is news to anyone who knows the history of Linux.
Linus Torvalds was motivated to create a UNIX-like operating system for the IBM-PC because of the almost--at THAT time--universal pervasiveness of the PC; by its very ubiquity. Translation: Linux was CREATED FOR the PC. One simply has to read the history of the Linux operating system--universally available to anyone.
It is, at all times, crucial to be able to absolutely distinguish between (some)one's personal opinion, and fact; for this reason, it might be a good idea for forum moderators to require commenters to post, along with their comment(s), a disclaimer to the effect that they are posting a personal opinion, particularly when that opinion runs counter to established fact.
"I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts."--Mark Twain
"You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts."--anon
"Most people will accept facts as truth, particularly if those 'facts' agree with what they already believe."--Andy Rooney
M
74 • Bootchart (by Justin on 2019-06-13 16:29:43 GMT from United States)
A great visual tool is bootchart. I learned about this from the research project to boot Linux in under 5 seconds (a feat at the time): https://lwn.net/Articles/299483/. This article also makes excellent points about setting budgets and having goals rather than constantly reaching for the smallest number and suffering diminishing returns.
Bootchart works great with sysvinit, open-rc, etc., just add it as the init process at your kernel command line. There is a systemd version (I use the one in AUR) that behaves basically the same way. Both can generate an SVG that you view in your browser or post online.
I've used both to optimize desktop startup. You get more granular details than systemd-analyze critical-chain because you're looking at the process list, though critical-chain is a good first pass. I've done all sorts of hacks to improve start times because of this and learned that shell scripts have so much overhead. For example, I cut 1-2 seconds off my netbook by putting the contents of startx/xinit in my .bashrc because scripts spawning other scripts was too slow. I also learned to appreciate init dependencies and rather than optimize runit to launch services in parallel (open-rc already did this, but Void uses runit), I realized what I wanted was systemd, so I just moved to it.
75 • Slow BTRFS Boot (by Justin on 2019-06-13 16:51:23 GMT from United States)
Mint 19 uses Timeshift, which can use btrfs as one backup option. I use btrfs on one machine, and I get hit with a few seconds of algorithm/performance checking the kernel makes. If you can blacklist the btrfs driver with a modprobe configuration, then your problems may go away (remember to rebuild your initramfs or nothing will change).
While I appreciate a beginner-friendly OOBE, it does bother me that I have to pay the "penalty" of specific hardware/software configurations when I don't use them. That LWN article above makes a similar argument.
76 • Disclaimer (by Friar Tux on 2019-06-13 17:37:22 GMT from Canada)
Re: Timeshift... I have actually deleted it for my OS as it appears useless in most circumstances. Something goes wrong; you get it fixed; you pull up Timeshift to bring things back to where you had it; Timeshift in forms you it can't find the files, or is missing something, or, if you've changed any hardware, it just doesn't work. Timeshift, working in the background slows down your computer and eats up real estate by the gigabyte, depending on what it saves. Those are the facts, at least how I experienced the workings of Timeshift. Now for my opinion:- the best solution is to simply copy all my important stuff to an external drive. This is even faster than backup programmes, at least all the ones I've tried.
77 • @ 73 English is interesting... (by OstroL on 2019-06-13 21:39:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
"We are actually discussing the boot times of Linux distros on computers that are not made for them."
English is a pretty interesting language, but sometimes, some people don't want to understand, for ideological reasons.
Now, I'd be quite happy, if you can give a link to computer manufacturer, who is making computers that are specifically made with parts to run only Linux distros, and that cannot run Windows at all.
As far as I know, we install Linux distros on computers made to run Windows, and sometimes on Macbooks, Mac pros, Mac minis, iMacs, Chromebooks and even on Android devices.
(Ah, btw, don't worry about the "history" of Linux.)
78 • @ 73 (by Pierre on 2019-06-13 21:50:25 GMT from France)
"Linus Torvalds was motivated to create a UNIX-like operating system for the IBM-PC because of the almost--at THAT time--universal pervasiveness of the PC; by its very ubiquity. Translation: Linux was CREATED FOR the PC."
Read your statement twice, then go read #70. You are agreeing with the guy -- "Linux was CREATED FOR the PC."
For a computer that was NOT made for Linux!
We all install Linux distros on computers that are NOT made for Linux, period!
79 • Chickens and eggs (by Dydimus on 2019-06-14 01:25:43 GMT from Philippines)
Which came first? Did someone create an OS for a machine that did not exist yet? Or did someone create an OS to run on a particular machine?
80 • @ 78. It just goes on and on and on, doesn't it? (by R. Cain on 2019-06-14 02:24:57 GMT from United States)
******************************************
"...For a computer that was NOT made for Linux!
We all install Linux distros on computers that are NOT made for Linux, period!"
******************************************
It just goes on and on and...
Not only do certain individuals here not know the history of Linux; the history of the IBM PC--as well as the workings of computers in general--seems to be just as elusive and incomprehensible. As is their logic. And, sadly, absolute convictions.
When IBM was creating the PC in Boca Raton, Florida, they created an operating-system-agnostic computer, period. When you design a computer, that's what you get. Period. You get a machine WHICH RUNS SOFTWARE. PERIOD.
IBM did NOT create the PC to run ANY particular operating system; indeed, it was not at all clear what operating system, if any, would be "the standard", or even if there would be a "standard". CPM-86 was among the early contenders as an operating system for the IBM PC.
By some convoluted form of reasoning, some people seem to think--no, make that "KNOW"--that the IBM PC was CREATED to run a Microsoft operating system, and that running anything else is a very poor fit; a 'bastardization' of what IBM originally designed. Nothing could be further from the truth...OR more illogical. IBM *did not care*, nor have any interest in what particular operating system, or systems, ran on their machine. IBM was in the HARDWARE business.
There is absolutely nothing in the specification of either a Harvard-architecture machine (the IBM PC) or a Von-Neumann machine which dictates what OPERATING SYSTEM needs to be, or should be used.
Don't give up your day jobs.
****************************************
"I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said."
--Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
81 • PC OSs (by POPies on 2019-06-14 06:49:23 GMT from Australia)
Agreed with someone above (not sure who), the IBM-PC dominated the market because of its open hardware, making it easier for ppl to write applications to run on it. So anyone could create an OS for the IBM PC, but IBM/MS-DOS/Intelx86 became the standard. Only proprietary computers had proprietary OSs at the time.
82 • Obscure OS (by whoKnows on 2019-06-14 07:33:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
@79 • by Dydimus
"... did someone create an OS to run on a particular machine?"
I'm not an expert on history nor the history of OS but wasn't exactly that the case with some obscure OS, written by some obscure companies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SOS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa#Lisa_OS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_version_history
Was that thing ever running or being used on any other HW?
83 • How nice...? (by OstroL on 2019-06-14 07:44:10 GMT from Poland)
How nice, when ppl try to move the discussion to other tracks. Now we are talking about IBM PCs. Anyone running Linux on an IBM PC? Or does IBM have any PCs these days?
Anyway, the topic is boot times of Linux distros.
Has anyone here a computer specifically made for Linux distros? Or do we install Linux distros on computers made specifically for other operating systems? Isn't that the reason, Linux kernel is getting fatter and fatter, trying to match all kinds of hardware parts?
When we "boot" our computer to a Linux distro, so many apps have to start up before it shows the login screen. And, it takes time. Do we have Linux distros that would boot instantaneously when you tap on the screen, or touch a finger print scanner, or by opening the cover? I really love to have one such with the "mainline" Linux distros on it. If anyone can point me to one, I'd be obliged.
84 • @ 80 Talking about IBM PCs...& history (by P on 2019-06-14 08:43:06 GMT from France)
"The first IBM PC, formally known as the IBM Model 5150, was based on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system. "
Not IBM-DOS, but Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system. The first IBM PC was made to run a specific operating system, the MS-DOS.
The cloning went on and on, and even today, all those clones are made to run Microsoft's OS, whatever it is at the given time.
85 • @84 P; (by dragonmouth on 2019-06-14 12:10:09 GMT from United States)
"The first IBM PC was made to run a specific operating system, the MS-DOS. "
Not so. Model 5150 aka IBM PC was designed on purpose by IBM to be O/S agnostic so that customers could choose whichever O/S they wanted. There were mainly three O/Ss available for the PC - PC-DOS, CP/M-86 and UCSD p-System, with PC-DOS being the most frequently chosen.
Besides, the hardware is developed first, then the software is written to exploit the capabilities of the that hardware. It is much easier to re-write the software (O/S) to work better with a processor than it is to re-design the processor to work with an O/S.
86 • @ 85 dragonmouth knows better than IBM (by P on 2019-06-14 12:40:48 GMT from France)
Well, dragonmouth knows better than IBM. Best go ask IBM.
Oh, the "history" of IBM PC.
The IBM's first PC couldn't be released without the Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system.
And, that's the fact!
87 • Interesting facts (by OstroL on 2019-06-14 13:07:50 GMT from Poland)
Interesting facts @ dragonmouth, @ R. Cain, etc
* Digital Research (CP/M) and Microsoft were approached by IBM about providing an operating system for its PC. Microsoft won the competition with its own operating system, called MS-DOS.
* MS-DOS, or Microsoft Disk Operating System, the basic software for the newly released IBM PC, is the start of a long partnership between IBM and Microsoft, which Bill Gates and Paul Allen had founded only six years earlier. MS-DOS was eventually supplanted by Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
* Richard Stallman, a programmer at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, set out to develop a free alternative to the popular Unix operating system in 1984. This operating system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix). While the GNU work did not immediately result in a full operating system.
* Designed by Finnish university student Linus Torvalds, the Linux kernel is released to several Usenet newsgroups. In February 1992, Linux became free software or, as its developers preferred to say after 1998, “open source.”
* FreeBSD, a complete Unix-like operating system is launched in 1995.
Well, there are many interesting facts in the computer history. But, the most interesting fact is that Microsoft's MS-DOS was created 6 months, before the release of the 1st IBM PC. From then onwards, the hardware is created to match the OS from Redmond.
88 • In response to OstroL, #83 (by Barnabyh on 2019-06-14 13:59:37 GMT from Germany)
OstroL wrote:
"When we "boot" our computer to a Linux distro, so many apps have to start up before it shows the login screen. And, it takes time. Do we have Linux distros that would boot instantaneously when you tap on the screen, or touch a finger print scanner, or by opening the cover? I really love to have one such with the "mainline" Linux distros on it. If anyone can point me to one, I'd be obliged."
After seven years of holding out, discounting a cheap Chromebook a few years back, I recently finally splashed out on a ASUS Vivobook Core i7 with eight threads and 16GB. It actually does that, booting up as soon as the cover is opened. And with the SSD it takes under five secs to boot. Suspend and hibernate work flawlessly and almost instant. Pretty nice. So yes, it's possible.
OS LMDE 3 with Cinnamon.
That means I've given in to systemd for now. Not happy about it but on balance will tolerate it as long as it works as it does on this machine. The Mint people have done a great job with this.
89 • Feature story authors (by Barnabyh on 2019-06-14 14:07:21 GMT from Germany)
Btw, does anyone actually look at the author of the article before commenting? People always asssume it's written by Jesse when this weeks Feature Story is by Robert Rijkhoff. Same last time a week or two ago.
90 • re: An excellent Linux distro (by nanome on 2019-06-14 14:20:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
@69: you might have noticed android-x86 at position 52 in the distrowatch charts. I have tried this a few times over the years, and whilst they may have squashed many of the bugs that affected it, it did not work well [for me] without a touch screen. There is also something about the Google culture that worries me [yes, I use gmail].
Anyway, it won't be long before Google are able to ditch Linux-based Android in favour of Fuchsia, which being a microkernel based OS should irritate Linus Torvalds a little.
91 • @ 88 (by OstroL on 2019-06-14 14:28:39 GMT from Poland)
Thank you. Is this the one? https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-VivoBook-Pro-15-N580GD/ It comes with Windows 10, doesn't it? Does the finger print sensor work with LMDE 3? Have you uninstalled Windows 10, or have you made Grub to start LMDE 3 as the first OS? What about the Plymouth app? Doesn't it take some time to get through?
As far as I understood from the manufacturer's website, this Vivobook is made for Windows, not for Linux.
92 • @ 90 An excellent Linux distro (by OstroL on 2019-06-14 14:40:22 GMT from Poland)
"you might have noticed android-x86 at position 52 in the distrowatch charts."
I wasn't talking about that distro, but of Samsung DeX, which is created off AOSP (the Android Open Source Project) plus internal work of Samsung.
"Anyway, it won't be long before Google are able to ditch Linux-based Android in favour of Fuchsia, which being a microkernel based OS should irritate Linus Torvalds a little."
I don't mind that. I am not worried about the irritation of Torvalds. I've been staying away from Android, thinking it as a mobile OS, but now I see the potential with DeX. Hope Fuchsia will come in my time.
93 • #91 (by Barnabyh on 2019-06-14 15:05:34 GMT from Germany)
Very similar. Mine is labelled Vivobook S R520U, it's also got Nvidia and integrated Intel graphics. I can't actually find it any more with an i7 but there appears to be a i5 variant. Same specs otherwise.
It doesn't have a finger print sensor. Windows got wiped straight away and LMDE is the only OS. I'm not sure what Plymouth is, is it not something Fedora used for boot up? I usually use Slackware or something nimble like AntiX or Puppy, don't think they are using it.
Made for Windows is just marketing talk. Either it works with the hardware or it doesn't, and the kernel supports almost anything these days. In reality, I haven't had any real problems for ages, and the last what I would call smaller issue was when I had to compile a driver for a Ralink USB Wifi adapter for an old tower around 2012/13.
No Windows sticker on it either. Good times :-).
94 • Addendum (by Barnabyh on 2019-06-14 15:12:11 GMT from Germany)
Ah, you mean the graphic hiding the boot up sequence. Hardly get to see it, gone too fast!
95 • Linux 4 'Fun' (by noLiNux on 2019-06-14 15:43:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
93 • by Barnabyh
"I'm not sure what Plymouth is, is it not something Fedora used for boot up?"
Basically, it's the Boot Screen with Logo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_(software)
"I haven't had any real problems for ages ..."
I didn't have anything else but the problems with Linux. No matter which Distribution, no matter which Hardware.
Some combinations worked better, some worse but, not the single one worked OOTB, without making it work first.
You can have anything you want; fingerprint and face recognition inclusive (you speak german, it was explained how to get it work recently in c't) but, you can have the same and much more with Windows too and (almost) everything works better -- except you're trying to revive some 7 or 10 or 20-year old HW.
96 • @ 93 (by OstroL on 2019-06-14 15:53:20 GMT from Poland)
If I could buy one, I wouldn't uninstall Windows, for I don't want to throw away something I paid for. I'd dual boot.
Anyway, made for Windows is not marketing gimmick. Windows have to work in those that are made for Windows. But, when we install a Linux distro, something won't work, either the touch pad, or the wifi, or something. There are no such laptops made for Linux out there. I am not ready to pay System76 tax to buy a Clevo laptop, which is an OEM computer. I can get a Clevo much cheaper without an OS (well, DOS will be there anyway) and install LMDE 3 for example and have a better system, much cheaper.
If we get a no-OS laptop, it'd still have an OS, which would be MS-DOS -- no computer can be sold without an OS, at least in the EU. So, it'd be still a laptop made for Microsoft.
Now that you've wiped out Windows, you've also wiped out the guarantee. I believe, according to the EU laws, if you don't like the OS that came with the computer, you have to return it to get your money back, or you can keep it, but without any warranties.
Anyway, the Windows registration code is burned into the motherboard, so you can always reinstall Windows, if anything would go wrong with the laptop. Until you don't change the motherboard, Windows is still there, that is, your laptop is made for Windows. You can even replace the CPU, TPM, or Motherboard, but then you may have to re-activate Windows, but this will not require a re-purchase of Windows 10. Strange, but true. All those laptops that come with OEM Windows have it burned into it some way.
97 • 96 (by Barnabyh on 2019-06-14 17:03:13 GMT from Germany)
True, System76 are a bit dear. One could also buy the Mintbox or the Chimpbox with PCLinuxOS for a more stationary solution. Those prices seem pretty fair to me but of course they re not laptops.
I seem to remember from the discussion years ago that MS was subsisiding manufacturers to pre-install their OS and that PC's would be more expensive without that. No idea whether that's correct or not but I'm happy to take advantage of cheaper hardware if everything runs as intended. That said, ideally all computers should be agnostic of whatever OS will run on them.
Thinking about it however, I'm sure even back in the UNIX days that wasn't the case as mainframes were built for their particular brand. For example Sun SPARC servers.
98 • @86 P: (by dragonmouth on 2019-06-14 20:57:40 GMT from United States)
I suggest you go back and check the history of IBM PC.
The design for the IBM PC was finalized in April 1981. The PC was designed to be O/S agnostic. At that time neither Microsoft nor IBM had anything that remotely resembled either MS-DOS or PC-DOS. Microsoft did not acquire 86-DOS, which was to be re-written by Tim Paterson as MS-DOS, until July of 1981. So the hardware (IBM PC) came first, then one of the O/Ss was written for it. Tim Paterson created 86-DOS, while working for Seattle Computer Products, as an improvement of Digital Research's CP/M. The two big improvements were improved disk buffering and replacement of CP/M filesystem with FAT12.
99 • @98 (by OstroL on 2019-06-14 21:17:38 GMT from Poland)
You are wrong. IBM had to match the OS that was there 6 months before IBM planned to release its 1st PC.
100 • @ 97 (by OstroL on 2019-06-14 21:19:17 GMT from Poland)
Some think that operating systems are made for hardware, and that hardware came first, but it so happens that hardware is made to match the operating system. Also the operating system (and the owners) dictates the terms how and why the hardware is to happen. Never the other way.
For the hardware to run, there must be an operating system, and who owns the right one dictates to the world. Practically all computer manufacturers would make computers to run that OS, except for iOS, MacOS, Chrome OS and Android.
Linux distro developers make distros to run on Windows computers. That fact is prominently stated in all Linux distro developers websites in so many words. The Internet is full of how-to install Linux distros on this or that Windows laptop. And, how to get rid of this or that problem. But, we never see how-to install Windows on that given laptop. Because, it's simply get installed, for the hardware was made for Windows.
That's the whole problem we have. We don't have a dedicated hardware to install our chosen Linux distro. We need a Windows computer, or an Apple one, or even a Chromebook or an MS-DOS one. Or we can pay exorbitant monies to buy a so-called Linux computer with an unwanted Linux distro.
So, what the use of discussing boot times of computers that are made for other operating systems, mostly for Windows?
101 • @87 Ostrol: (by dragonmouth on 2019-06-14 21:39:21 GMT from United States)
" the most interesting fact is that Microsoft's MS-DOS was created 6 months, before the release of the 1st IBM PC"
What is interesting is where you found that fact. Microsoft did not acquire the software that was to become MS-DOS until July 1981 which was only ONE month before the release of the IBM PC which occurred on August 12, 1981.
If you want to be strictly accurate, 86-DOS, the O/S which was re-written to become MS-DOS had its first release in August 1980. However, it was not released by Microsoft but by Seattle Computer Products. Microsoft bought 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products in July 1981. So while you are technically correct that the O/S that was to be eventually called MS-DOS preceded the IBM PC, you have the creation date wrong. 86-DOS was an improved version of CP/M which was created by Gary Kildall of Digital Research in 1974 which means that the precursor of MS-DOS was created 7 years, not 6 months before the IBM PC. However, while the engineers were developing the IBM PC down in Boca Raton, they had no idea or preference for the O/S to be used to run it.
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