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Reducing OS Boot Times for In-Car Computer Applications, Part III (Linux Journal)

[Posted October 26, 2004 by ris]

Linux Journal goes for five-second boot times on in-car computers. "In our earlier articles, we compared the unnecessarily slow boot process to that of a car radio. The car radio boot times have climbed from nearly instant in the 1980s to several seconds today, but they still are rapid enough to be hardly noticeable. If you watch a modern radio right after you start the engine, you may see it do a small power-on self test, flash all the lights on the unit--much as dashboards in many cars do--and then power on the amplifier, producing sound within a second or two. We decided to use the radio as our benchmark of rapid usability and appliance-like behavior. We attempted to minimize the following two variables: time from computer power-on to video and time from computer power-on to audio."

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Posted Oct 26, 2004 17:41 UTC (Tue) by grund (guest, #830) [Link]

The 1968 Dodge Van I had in the early '90s came to mind when I read this. The stock radio in it was the best AM radio I ever heard. It was a tube unit that took about five minutes to warm up. I would always forget that I turned it on and would suddenly be suprised by music (or insipid am talk radio).

Reducing OS Boot Times for In-Car Computer Applications, Part III (Linux

Posted Oct 26, 2004 19:21 UTC (Tue) by StevenCole (guest, #3068) [Link]

The tube radio in my dad's early 60's Ford F-100 gave a nice solid THUNK when first turned on, and the warmup time was only about 20 seconds IIRC. But it was the best AM radio I've ever heard. Back then, waiting 20 seconds for the radio to come on didn't seem like the burden such a delay would seem today.

Reducing OS Boot Times for In-Car Computer Applications, Part III (Linux

Posted Oct 26, 2004 23:34 UTC (Tue) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

Yup. And waiting 30 seconds to come-on from a shared joint (or 30 minutes for a coupla hits of Owsley) was no big thing... just part of the greater experience.