Just saw the idea from a link on Slashdot, wouldn't it be nice for Gentoo to be the first ultra-fast booting Linux distro? The basic idea seems to be: calculate dependancies between services, then start as many as you can simultaneously. Since some do network access and other things, this can significantly speed up the boot process. I'm under the impression that Gentoo's rc system already handles service dependancy calculation, so perhaps part of the technique described in the linked page could be quickly adapted to our boot system? In any case, it's definately a large feature request, but I thought it'd be good to get the ball rolling and people looking at it now, so that maybe we can do it /first/. :) Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
we'd have to handle the output somehow otherwise boot would like a friggin mess
True... but it shouldn't be too hard to count the number of things spawned to boot and print out their initial starting lines in order; then when one finishes starting up use the vt control sequences to move the cursor to the end of the line their startup message is on and print the "[ok]" or "[failed]". I would think that a simple linked list could track this info nicely. I'm not sure what language the boot script is written in though... or what part of the system actually takes care of that bit. Is it 'init'? Is it 'rc'?
Also, am I the only one who received the notification e-mail from "bugzilla", no @, no domain-name, with a link to: http://you-havent-visited-editparams.cgi-yet/show_bug.cgi?id=29061 Did core team upgrade Bugzilla recently and forget to set some settings? :)
We have this already. Not much speed increase.
We already have this? My system sure ain't doin' it, and I /know/ I'd see a speed increase, because I've got a few services that just sit there doing net activity after they start up before reporting that they're done. How do I "turn it on", so to speak?
I'm still interested in finding out how to actually do this, I'm looking in your direction, Martin, since you said it's already possible. Can you point me at some docs, or references, or even a couple tips on where to get started? Thanks.
Heh, just found it in /etc/conf.d/rc, so never mind. I think that's something that should be documented somewhere a little more obviously, though. :)
