Very Slow Boot Up on Notebook Computer when using "splash"

[Guyver]

Here is my system and configuration:

Asus Z70Va notebook computer (Brand New in 2005)
LCD Resolution: 1680x1050
GPU: ATI Radeon Mobility X700 (128MB Dedicated Memory)
CPU: Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz)
RAM: 2GB Corsair DDR2
HDD: Toshiba 100GB w/16MB cache
Bluetooth: Toshiba (model ?)
Wireless: Intel 802.11a/b/g

Observation:

#1: Feisty Fawn takes a very long time to boot on my notebook. Windows XP boots at warp speed comapred to Feisty on my notebook. None of the fixes on the Web Forum I have found seem to solve my slow boot up problem. I was led to believe through the forums that this had something to do with the system polling for wireless connections at boot up and is somehow semi-common to those using Feisty on notebook computers for whatever reason.

#2: Currently, a 900MHz desktop celeron with 256MB of RAM boots up Edgy Eft faster than my notebook boots up Feisty Fawn. What's even worse is I do not power up the Celeron until AFTER I start powering up my notebook.

#3: Possibly related, I have noticed that either my CPU / GPU fan spins much more often on Feisty than it ever has on Edgy Eft.

My my reason for submitting this bug is hoping that it gets resolved in Gutsy or the next release thereafter.

For some notebooks with final release of Linux Ubuntu Gutsy, laptops take a abnormal time to boot ( over 2 minutes ). This regression appeared between the Beta and the Final release of Gutsy, 0.5.5 and 0.5.7 version of usplash.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Try booting without the "splash" and "quiet" options and see if you can identify what takes so much time.

[Guyver (george-jarvis)]

I'm a newb. How do I do that? This will not be something I can do until I
get home in 8+ hours from now.

On 10/17/07, Tormod Volden <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Try booting without the "splash" and "quiet" options and see if you can
> identify what takes so much time.
>
> ** Changed in: ubuntu
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
> --
> Very Slow Boot Up with Feisty on Notebook Computer
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/153594
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

At the grub boot menu, select the main entry and press 'e' to edit it. Then choose the kernel line and press 'e'. Go to the end of the line and delete the two words splash and quiet. Now press enter a couple of times to boot.

Alternatively choose the "recovery mode" which boots to "single user" then press ctrl-D to resume full booting.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

By the way, Ubuntu 7.10 will be released tomorrow, and it would be good if you can try it and see if the issues persist.

[Guyver (george-jarvis)]

I could. Then all of this would be a moot point. I'll wait till tomorrow
then.

On 10/17/07, Tormod Volden <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> By the way, Ubuntu 7.10 will be released tomorrow, and it would be good
> if you can try it and see if the issues persist.
>
> --
> Very Slow Boot Up with Feisty on Notebook Computer
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/153594
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

In the case this would help : I have a laptop on Ubuntu since edgy. It booted within a minute in Edgy and Feisty and Gutsy Beta but since the Gutsy Final Release, it takes exactly 2 minutes and 50 secondes to boot.

I tried without the "splash" and "quiet" options and tada! Ubuntu now boot in 40 seconds.

I think that in my case, it's usplash because I never see the Ubuntu logo anymore at boot.

[Heikki Lindholm (holindho)]

I'm seeing the same on a ThinkPad T30. Boot takes many minutes when splash is enabled, but without splash boots in "normal" time. The ubuntu splash logo doesn't show up even when splash is enabled - on the install/livecd it does, though.

[Heikki Lindholm (holindho)]

...that's on 7.10 release, of course.

[Shawn McMahon (smcmahon)]

Same thing on my Averatec 6128 with ATI Radeon Mobility M10. But only on Gutsy; on Feisty it was fine. I took "splash" out and boot is normal.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

I tested this bug more deeper and found that it just happens with the final Gutsy CD with usplash 0.5.7.

This bug Doesn't happen with Gutsy Beta release which contains usplash 0.5.5.

That means that the regression appeared between 0.5.5 and 0.5.7

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Guyver : I've identified the problem in usplash, but we should not stop looking at your problem. Perhaps that we get 2 different bugs here. Thanks for your contribution to that bug report.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Can you please confirm that the problem is 0.5.7 by downgrading to 0.5.6 and then upgrading to 0.5.7 again? Using bootchart would also be a way to verify that usplash is bogging down the system.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Tormod Volden : I can't do that because the 0.5.6 or the 0.5.5 version is not in the repositories anymore. All I know is that Gutsy Beta release with 0.5.5 worked and Gutsy Final with 0.5.7 doesn't work.

I believe that this is rather a problem with configuration files because if I install the Beta release ( 0.5.5 which works ) and that I update to 0.5.7, I have no problems.

The problem is ONLY with the final release which includes 0.5.7. I'll try to investigate this a bit more..

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Here is two bootcharts, one with spash enabled and the other with splash disabled.

http://upload.leservicetechnique.com/bugs/bootchart-withsplash.png
http://upload.leservicetechnique.com/bugs/bootchart-withoutsplash.png

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks for the bootcharts, they make it pretty clear that usplash hogs the CPU.

You can copy the 0.5.5 version binaries from the running Beta CD in /sbin/usplash* and overwrite the ones in Gutsy Final. But if the 0.5.7 works fine in the Beta release, you're probably right there is something else.

For more investigation, you can also try running something like this on a virtual console:
 sudo strace -f -o /tmp/usplash.trace usplash -c & { sleep 3; sudo usplash_write "QUIT"; }
and check /tmp/usplash.trace to see what usplash was busy with.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

I found the problem. The final Gutsy release does install a /etc/usplash.conf file with wrong resolution. I just changed the resolution in that file to the good one and did a "sudo update-initramfs -u" and it fixed the problem. This problem is in ubiquity and it's the bug #150930 .

I suggest to wait for Guyver answers to see if his problem is the same than the bug #150930 before marking this bug as a duplicate.

[Shawn McMahon (smcmahon)]

Same fix worked on my Averatec. Fixed my black screen during boot, too.

[Shawn McMahon (smcmahon)]

confirmed in Hardy; same problem with default usplash.conf of 1280x1024, changed to 1280x800 and it's all good.

I would suggest changing the default to 1024x768; that should work on more systems, and it's not like the user benefits from the extra resolution.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

From what I see, this bug is clearly a duplicate of bug #61711 which makes usplash slowing down the whole startup process under certain circumstances, including a wrong /etc/usplash.conf . This bug is sometime caused by another bug #150930 in ubiquity that often create bad /etc/usplash.conf files during the installation of Linux Ubuntu Gutsy.

Therefore, I set this bug report as a duplicate of bug #61711. Please look at this bug report to see if you can provide useful information that will help to get this bug fixed. Thanks to everybody who worked on this bug report so far.