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Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymoreCheating: Not just for Microsoft anymorePosted Sep 22, 2008 18:58 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333)In reply to: Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore by SimonKagstrom Parent article: LPC: Booting Linux in five seconds
It's kinda dirty.
What ends up happening is that the user is presented with something that looks like it's ready to be used, but isn't. You may be missing your networking or not have file sharing, plus your system is using up all it's I/O and cpu, which means that it's not going to be responsive or open up your applications quickly.
A extreme example of this sort of approach would be just posting a screenshot of the desktop as the splashscreen and let the parts fill in and replace bits of the screen as they are loaded. It could be a neat effect, but it would be a lousy way to hide the fact that it takes many minutes to boot up your system.
Plus the point is to have the system fully bootable. So it's a challenge, a sport, so you have to have rules so nobody tries to cheat. :) Now if you have a system that boots under five seconds, but shaves off a second or two by bringing up a fake-ish user interface then that may be something else.
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Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 22, 2008 19:38 UTC (Mon) by SimonKagstrom (subscriber, #49801) [Link]
Well, if it's a sport - I agree, there should be the same rules for everyone :-)
However, otherwise I simply want to start working as soon as possible after I've logged in (as probably most people here, I seldomly boot). Obviously showing a screenshot of the desktop is just plain silly, but why should I have to wait for some network share to be mounted unless I really need it?
Applications will start slower, sure, but if the system is unusable because of I/O caused by daemons starting in the background I'd consider that a plain bug which should be fixed.
// Simon
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 22, 2008 22:28 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
What if your application depends on data on a network share?
I figure the services your starting up are starting up for good reason and you'll probably have applications that depend on them. Otherwise, on a desktop, what is the point of starting them? :)
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 23, 2008 7:35 UTC (Tue) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
The distribution sets them up so that the user doesn't have to know about them at all. E.g. the user doesn't have to know about CUPS in order to print. (Although I would be interested to know how many Linux users have succeeded in printing without knowing about CUPS.) Of course, that could also be made more intelligent - some services could be started when they are needed by default (I thought that was the point of upstart) and automatically moved to or from autostart on boot depending on how often the user needs them.
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 23, 2008 15:14 UTC (Tue) by macc (subscriber, #510) [Link]
CUPS is unpleasantly opaque.
It's either there or not after
The next bloodpressure raisers
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 23, 2008 20:05 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
What's wrong with 'lprm'? It works for me.
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 23, 2008 9:08 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]
There are some daemons like spamd of spamassassin that are not necessary right after boot, so they could be started later in the background...
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 23, 2008 17:58 UTC (Tue) by arjan (subscriber, #36785) [Link]
Spam Assassin should just be started on first use; if you only use gmail for your email you shouldn't pay for it (both in time and memory) after all.
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Sep 23, 2008 2:30 UTC (Tue) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Well in the windows camp, for example, you can't even successfully operate the start menu. So just triggering the attempted launch the programs you want can be really unworkable, and with a less than perfect io subsystem, your attempts to launch programs may cause thrashing, delaying your eventual ability to make use of your programs.
Linux is of course a good deal better than this, but avoiding these devils bargains is still laudible.
Cheating: Not just for Microsoft anymore Posted Oct 4, 2008 18:36 UTC (Sat) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] Well in the windows camp, for example, you can't even successfully operate the start menu. Indeed. What's the point of showing the user the desktop if they can't actually use it? That's the question the Windows developers should be asking themselves.
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