Booting is delayed by ~20 sec. when using 'quiet splash' arguments

[Stefan Güls]

Binary package hint: usplash

I'm running a nforce2-based system, Athlon XP, kernel 2.6.15-23-k7.

If using the default boot arguments 'quiet splash' the boot process hangs for approx. 20 sec. without obvious reason (like ntpdate or dhcp), usplash indicating 'mounting root fs'
(rootfs is a 5GB reiserfs, shouldn't take 20 secs. to mount)

Booting without 'quiet splash' for diagnostic purposes the machine went up just fine, without this delay, no remarkable messages on screen.

I observed this happening the first time during testing with the transition from 2.6.15-20-k7 to 2.6.15-21-k7. Trying a clean install from a release-CD (Desktop) didn't help, so it's not upgrade related.

[Stefan Güls (sguels)]

Further tests showed this to be true for the -386 kernel (2.6.15-23 and -25) with a fresh install on a different partition.

On IRC #ubuntu-de at least one other user reported the same problem.

P.S: The real annoying thing about this is, that when initially switching to Dapper the boot-time was drastically shorter than with Breezy.... until kernel -21 came along :-(. In this state the machine boots even _slower_ than it did with Breezy.
If this isn't corrected or maybe even intended behaviour (what the hell is the machine doing then in this 20 secs.?) this is a clear failure to meet the claims and the objective for a quicker boot for Dapper.

[Stefan Güls (sguels)]

P.P.S. My girlfriends machine (P3/Intel 815) doesn't show this behaviour. Might this be a Nforce[2]-specific problem?

[Stefan Güls (sguels)]

After I discovered the right wiki page here are the relevant logs:

------------------------------------------------- dmesg ------------------------------------
[17179569.184000] Linux version 2.6.15-25-k7 (buildd@terranova) (gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)) #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Jun 14 11:43:20 UTC 2006
[17179569.184000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001fff0000 (usable)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 000000001fff0000 - 000000001fff3000 (ACPI NVS)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 000000001fff3000 - 0000000020000000 (ACPI data)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] 0MB HIGHMEM available.
[17179569.184000] 511MB LOWMEM available.
[17179569.184000] On node 0 totalpages: 131056
[17179569.184000] DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:0
[17179569.184000] DMA32 zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0
[17179569.184000] Normal zone: 126960 pages, LIFO batch:31
[17179569.184000] HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0
[17179569.184000] DMI 2.2 present.
[17179569.184000] ACPI: RSDP (v000 Nvidia ) @ 0x000f6e60
[17179569.184000] ACPI: RSDT (v001 Nvidia AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff3000
[17179569.184000] ACPI: FADT (v001 Nvidia AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff3040
[17179569.184000] ACPI: MADT (v001 Nvidia AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff7200
[17179569.184000] ACPI: DSDT (v001 NVIDIA AWRDACPI 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000d) @ 0x00000000
[17179569.184000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x4008
[17179569.184000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
[17179569.184000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
[17179569.184000] Processor #0 6:10 APIC version 16
[17179569.184000] ACPI: LAPIC_NMI (acpi_id[0x00] high edge lint[0x1])
[17179569.184000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x02] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0])
[17179569.184000] IOAPIC[0]: apic_id 2, version 17, address 0xfec00000, GSI 0-23
[17179569.184000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl)
[17179569.184000] ACPI: BIOS IRQ0 pin2 override ignored.
[17179569.184000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level)
[17179569.184000] ACPI: IRQ9 used by override.
[17179569.184000] Enabling APIC mode: Flat. Using 1 I/O APICs
[17179569.184000] Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information
[17179569.184000] Allocating PCI resources starting at 30000000 (gap: 20000000:dec00000)
[17179569.184000] Built 1 zonelists
[17179569.184000] Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda5 ro vga=0x317 quiet splash
[17179569.184000] mapped APIC to ffffd000 (fee00000)
[17179569.184000] mapped IOAPIC to ffffc000 (fec00000)
[17179569.184000] Initializing CPU#0
[17179569.184000] PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 32768...

[Stefan Güls (sguels)]

Extensive testing and trying to interpret the logs above myself led me to physically disconnect the DVD-Drive. This made the problem go away.
So it's the kernel waiting for the DVD-Drive, where no medium is inserted. Interestingly enough this only happens under certain conditions and only with the ubuntu-stock kernel
Test-Booting with other kernels from differnet Distros(e.g. latest Kanotix or debian-Kernel) didn't show the same problems.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this linux-source-2.6.15 kernel bug to the new "linux" package. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Also, if you would be interested in testing the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release, it is available at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Please let us know your results. Thanks!