TC boot times

I know ogra and co are working on this problem in general,
but it
might be worth mentioning my experience with this in here as
well.

We have lots of very nice thin clients at a couple of
schools, so
we've been running Edubuntu Edgy without any complaints
about boot
times there. A test yesterday showed that one could log in
80 seconds
after booting, which is slower than LTSP 4.2 but not
unreasonable at
all.

We have one collection of 12 old-ish laptops (650Mhz, 128MB)
that take
5 minutes(!) to get to a login prompt with Edubuntu -- edgy
or feisty.
In contrast, that same laptop takes 38 seconds to get to a
login
prompt with LTSP 4.2. In further contrast, we have scads of
Netier
thin clients (250Mhz, 64MB) that take only 1:50 to present
an Edubuntu
(edgy or feisty) login screen.

We haven't done further testing yet to find out if any of
the other
TCs in use in the district suffer from the same malady as
the
particularly slow laptops, but have others run into strange
issues
like this?

It's probably worth noting that the last 1:15 of the
laptop's
5 minutes the 'gtk' greeter is pegging the processor, and
this, at
least, is significantly longer than the same process takes
on the
Netiers (with their much lower specs). I don't have any
particular
ideas about why this should be the case. But since ogra's
working on
a C implementation of ldm anyway, this part of the problem
may just go
away.

--matt

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Hi,

On Thu, 17 May 2007, Matt Oquist wrote:

> I know ogra and co are working on this problem in
general, but it
> might be worth mentioning my experience with this in
here as well.

An analysis of what's taking so long might be a useful way
for a few of us
admins to contribute.

This all reminds me of a few projects done in the last while
including this
Debian GSOC project:

http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.or
g/soc2006-bootsystem/bootcharts.html

I wonder if we could put together a special ltsp chroot
which added
detailed boot timings.  If we could gather a set of these
together we might
be able to see more clearly what's slowing things down.  A
wiki page on
ImprovingLTSPBootTime might be useful to pull data/ideas
together.

A colleague who was involved in the above project mentioned
this as useful:

http://www.bootchart.org/

> We have one collection of 12 old-ish laptops (650Mhz,
128MB) that take
> 5 minutes(!) to get to a login prompt with Edubuntu --
edgy or feisty.

> In contrast, that same laptop takes 38 seconds to get
to a login
> prompt with LTSP 4.2. 

> In further contrast, we have scads of Netier thin
clients (250Mhz, 64MB)
> that take only 1:50 to present an Edubuntu (edgy or
feisty) login screen.

A central location to put timings and a standard way to
collect them would
definitely be useful I think.  Perhaps it would be more
suitable on an LTSP
site than an Edubuntu one?

> It's probably worth noting that the last 1:15 of the
laptop's
> 5 minutes the 'gtk' greeter is pegging the processor,
and this, at
> least, is significantly longer than the same process
takes on the
> Netiers (with their much lower specs). I don't have any
particular
> ideas about why this should be the case. But since
ogra's working on
> a C implementation of ldm anyway, this part of the
problem may just go
> away.

So, after X has started, ldm takes a further 75 seconds? 
That's wierd.

AFAIR ltsp 4.2 didn't use dexconf, it had its own config
method.  If you
snag the Xorg.conf on one of those really slow machines,
stick it in the
chroot and use lts.conf to point it at that rather than
using dexconf, I
wonder would the boot time get any better?

I seem to recall LTSP Jim and Scott saying they had an idea
there might be
some nfs slowdown issue.  I'm not clear why that would be
true of some
machines more than others.

Gavin


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Hi,

On Thu, 17 May 2007, Matt Oquist wrote:

> I know ogra and co are working on this problem in
general, but it
> might be worth mentioning my experience with this in
here as well.

An analysis of what's taking so long might be a useful way
for a few of us
admins to contribute.

This all reminds me of a few projects done in the last while
including this
Debian GSOC project:

http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.or
g/soc2006-bootsystem/bootcharts.html

I wonder if we could put together a special ltsp chroot
which added
detailed boot timings.  If we could gather a set of these
together we might
be able to see more clearly what's slowing things down.  A
wiki page on
ImprovingLTSPBootTime might be useful to pull data/ideas
together.

A colleague who was involved in the above project mentioned
this as useful:

http://www.bootchart.org/

> We have one collection of 12 old-ish laptops (650Mhz,
128MB) that take
> 5 minutes(!) to get to a login prompt with Edubuntu --
edgy or feisty.

> In contrast, that same laptop takes 38 seconds to get
to a login
> prompt with LTSP 4.2. 

> In further contrast, we have scads of Netier thin
clients (250Mhz, 64MB)
> that take only 1:50 to present an Edubuntu (edgy or
feisty) login screen.

A central location to put timings and a standard way to
collect them would
definitely be useful I think.  Perhaps it would be more
suitable on an LTSP
site than an Edubuntu one?

> It's probably worth noting that the last 1:15 of the
laptop's
> 5 minutes the 'gtk' greeter is pegging the processor,
and this, at
> least, is significantly longer than the same process
takes on the
> Netiers (with their much lower specs). I don't have any
particular
> ideas about why this should be the case. But since
ogra's working on
> a C implementation of ldm anyway, this part of the
problem may just go
> away.

So, after X has started, ldm takes a further 75 seconds? 
That's wierd.

AFAIR ltsp 4.2 didn't use dexconf, it had its own config
method.  If you
snag the Xorg.conf on one of those really slow machines,
stick it in the
chroot and use lts.conf to point it at that rather than
using dexconf, I
wonder would the boot time get any better?

I seem to recall LTSP Jim and Scott saying they had an idea
there might be
some nfs slowdown issue.  I'm not clear why that would be
true of some
machines more than others.

Gavin


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