Re: kernel/initrd loading delays

Felix Miata
2016-03-22T08:49:13Z

Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-12 12:29 (UTC-0400):

> On more and more installations since most distros have replaced mkinitrd with
> dracut, on selecting a bootloader menu choice the "root
> (hd0,...filesystemtype..[Linux-bzImage, setup, ... initrd /boot/initrd"
> message stays on screen 40 seconds or more before the time-stamped boot
> messages begin scrolling the screen. IIRC, these delays first began appearing
> last January or February, and appear on multiple machines. All kernel and
> initrd images are on smallish EXT3 or EXT4 (mostly the latter) filesystems
> using 1024 blocksize on BIOS logical partitions on rotating rust (IIRC, all
> with native 512b sector size, manufactured in 2011 or earlier). All
> installations are configured with static IP. All have Plymouth either not
> installed, or are booted with noplymouth included on kernel cmdline.

> e.g, on my fastest system, host msi85, a 3.0 GHz dual core Haswell, total
> time from boot stanza select on BIOS host msi85 to Rawhide 4.3.0-0.rc3.git4.1
> (dracut initramfs.img 11,326,223) multi-user.target shell prompt ready is
> about 80 seconds following that 40 second delay, with last time stamp showing
> 36.844484.

> Same msi85 system booting LMDE 2 3.16.0-4 (non-dracut? initrd.img 27,362,964;
> initramfs-tools 0.120) delays start of boot messages nearly 80 seconds,
> reaching DM greeter ready nearly 140 seconds after stanza selection.

> Same system booting openSUSE Leap 42.1 4.1.8 (dracut initrd 8,082,360)
> exhibits no perceptible delay, reaching multi-user.target shell prompt in
> under 47 seconds from boot stanza selection.

> Same system booting openSUSE 13.2 3.16.7 (dracut initrd 5,351,996) delays
> start of boot messages about 40 seconds, reaching multi-user.target bash
> prompt about 90 seconds after stanza selection.

> Same system booting Mageia 5 4.1.8 (dracut initrd.img 9,391,664) exhibits no
> delay, reaching multi-user.target bash prompt in about 45 seconds.

> Same system booting Wheezy 3.2.0 (non-dracut initrd.img 10,537,321) exhibits
> no delay, reaching DM greeter in less than about 45 seconds.

> Same system booting openSUSE 13.1 3.12.44 (non-dracut initrd 7,679,390)
> exhibits no delay, reaching multi-user.target bash prompt in less than 45
> seconds.

> Same system booting Fedora 23 4.2.2 (dracut initramfs.img 11,255,214) reaches
> multi-user.target shell prompt in about 75 seconds after unknown
> kernel/initrd delay (puts display into sleep mode until boot messages appear).

> Same system booting openSUSE Tumbleweed 4.2.1 (dracut initrd 8,970,760)
> exhibits no delay, reaching multi-user.target bash prompt in less than 45
> seconds.

> Same system booting (second, on sda28, vs. other on sda23) openSUSE
> Tumbleweed 4.2.1 (dracut initrd 8,965,124) exhibits ~40 second delay,
> reaching multi-user.target bash prompt in about 100 seconds.

> Same system booting Kubuntu 14.10 3.16.0 (non-dracut initrd 20,550,608)
> exhibits no initial (linux/initrd) delay, reaching KDM greeter in about 90
> seconds.

> Same system booting Fedora 22 4.1.8 (dracut initrd 10,788,392) exhibits no
> delay, reaching multi-user.target bash prompt in less than 50 seconds.

> Any ideas what could cause these delays, or how to eliminate them?

Booting host hpg33 openSUSE Tumbleweed 20160307 64 bit kernel-default 4.4.3,
6194336 bytes, and initrd 38456340 bytes, just took 9.4 minutes for the last
Grub message to clear, and extended that to ~10.2 minutes to reach a shell
prompt. Prior 4.3.3-5 kernel-default's initrd is 9589212 bytes, 25% the size
of the current. 4.3.3-5 took 2 2/3 minutes for the Grub message to clear,
about 2/3 more minute to reach shell prompt, and 4.3.3-1 about the same. 3rd
prior, kernel-desktop-4.2.1 cleared the Grub message in too few seconds to
count, well under a minute to reach shell prompt. kernel-default-4.5.0
cleared the Grub in 130 seconds, reached shell prompt at 174.

Mount reported /dev/mapper/* names with 4.4.3 and 4.5.0, while 4.2.1 and
4.3.3 reported device names.

What's taking so long with kernel-default?
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/