System bootup post-installation: Long periods of completely blank screen

[Ken T]

Downloaded latest daily build of UB 32-bit a couple of hours ago. Checked SHA256sum, installed from Live USB.

The laptop I'm currently testing on is a 2005-era, 1.6Ghz Pentium M processor with 1GB RAM.

Post-installation, upon booting from my hard disk, there is a long period of blank screen, followed by the Budgie-branded splash screen & the "5 dots" animation, followed by a shorter but still significant period of completely blank screen, before finally arriving at the login screen. All the while, my laptop indicates hard disk activity, so it's not as if the system was hanging.

I mention this as new users might be a bit confused or less than confident that their system is working properly in the absence of some visual reassurance that the system is starting.

As a side comment, my impression was that the installation process for this daily build was slower than UB daily build I tried on the same hardware about a month ago.

Thanks,
Ken.

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

I've just timed the stages of boot process in order to help clarify what I'm talking about here.

O seconds: Pressing of power button
(splash screen for laptop brand & bios info appears & disappears within a few seconds)
(screen flashes different shades of black a few times)

At the 35-second mark: Ubuntu Budgie splash screen appears with "5 dots" animation

At 44 seconds: UB splash screen disappears, for <1sec is replaced by usual startup terminal text (starting services, etc), then completely black/blank screen reappears

At 54 seconds: Login screen appears

Please note that I'm not complaining about the bootup speed per se, and I realise I'm using an old laptop with basic specs and a spinning HDD. What I AM pointing out is that the majority of the bootup process is occurring with absolutely no on-screen indication to the user to reassure them that the system is booting properly.

Thanks,
Ken.
***

[fossfreedom (fossfreedom)]

Ken. You are most definitely below the minimum spec we recommend. 2GB is the recommendation.

I suspect there is an awful lot of disk usage indicating use of the disk cache

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

Hi fossfreedom (David?),

It seems there are some mixed messages about the specs needed to run UB - the attached screenshot from ubuntubudgie.org/downloads says that the 32bit version is "ideal for computers with less than 2GB of RAM" (without specifying a bare minimum), and says it's suited to "Ageing PCs with low-RAM resources".

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

What I'd strongly recommend is for the UB website to clearly & prominently list the specs needed for the following scenarios:
- "bare bones",
- minimum specs
- recommended specs (comfortable usage).

In this regard, Lubuntu offer a pretty good example - see attached.

As a bonus, doing this will help to resolve a lot of bugs (and potential gripes from users) before they happen!

Cheers,
Ken.
***

[fossfreedom (fossfreedom)]

I've raised the suggestion here - thanks https://github.com/UbuntuBudgie/Website/issues/45

[Lucas Varese (lucasv1179)]

Having same/similar problem with 32-bit Ubuntu Budgie. Only difference, those long periods of blank screen are accompanied by no disk activity at all. Other distros don't take so long (upwards of 2 minutes) to boot up.

[fossfreedom (fossfreedom)]

Marking this as invalid since 1GB is below the minimum spec.