Comment 71 for bug 1779827

Participating in bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm3/+bug/1779476 for the last
couple of days.

Clevo barebook W540 pentium 3805U 1.90G onboard graphics BroadwellGT1 single ssd, intel Wless 3160, only hardware hanging off it is a usb wireless mouse.
Had indefinite hang begin with update to Ubuntu-offered *-24 kernel.
A fair amount of keyboarding and mouse wiggling (average 90s) is needed to wake the process up again.
Holding the SHIFT key speeds up the boot to an acceptable delay.
Once into Gnome, networking is also fairly retarded (average 45s) and sometimes needs UI operation for the Net Manager to do its usual auto connect to its secure network.
Installing haveged stopped the hang. Network also appears to be more responsive, but this can
be masked by the flaky operation of our el-cheapo wireless router. Using a usb dongle which emulates etho appears to deliver much more reliable network start.

Booting into *-23 stopped all symptoms - haveged not needed.
Booting into the dev channel *-26 returned the hang and added a few display artefacts to the plymouth/Gnome handover process. Zero networking delivered in Gnome, not even a UI for Net Manager.

Hanging a portable WD 1TB spinner off the laptop USB3 port returned a good boot time into Gnome with the *-24 kernel without haveged installed. Networking was however delayed variously between 60s and at one boot appeared to need UI input to wake the hardware up to the secure connection already in the Net Manager's list, even though Net Manager could immediately see other networks around the place.

Reverting now to *-23 kernel for the week's work.
Hope these naive reports were in any way useful.