I did a little experiment with my 300Mhz laptop and set it up as fast as I could with Arch Linux, and now it boots from the Grub menu to the desktop in 46 seconds!
I know: You’re thinking that’s a load of. … And I would too, if I hadn’t done it myself. I used Openbox, set up the file system as fast as I could, set it to autologin, even forced out modules I wouldn’t use (like the parallel port … 🙄 ) and it’s down to 46.13 seconds. Conky says it’s only using 17.1Mb when it’s done, too.
Amazing. My best times with Ubuntu are only 10 or 12 seconds faster, and that’s on machines that run at 750Mhz or 1Ghz. I was happy to get this thing to the desktop in 1:10 with Ubuntu. And I’ve seen posts on the forums with people bragging about 2Ghz+ machines running Gnome booting in 42 or 44 seconds.
Wow. Speed rush.
If I could figure out what else to skimp, I could keep udev from lagging me so badly. Maybe I can get it down further. I’ll have to keep poking around.
As much as I love your Ubuntu guides and goodies…what would it take for you to put up an Arch install guide? I seem to be able to get things done when you are the one explaining it. Personally, I’d love to know how to integrate ndiswrapper (or any other wireless driver needed) into the install iso. They say it can be done in the install guide, then proceed to not tell you.
Hmm. Let me think about it. To be honest, I don’t have nearly the experience with Arch as I do with Ubuntu, and my hardware expertise is primarily with items I know will play nice with Arch.
I’ll think about it though. If I do, I’ll probably set up a separate blog just for Arch, since this one is fed into the Ubuntu users planet. Seems proper.