Howto analyze very long boot time and slow operation

[stevesr0]

I have an old PC with a 266 Pentium CPU, 192 megs of ram and 6 gig HD.

I had two 3 gig partitions, one running WinME and the other Caldera Linux.

This machine came this way.

Subjectively, the boot up time was OK with each OS and I did not have problems with speed of programs.

Recently, however, I decided to try to install puppy linux. I ended up reformatting as ext3 and
installing wary puppy as a full install.

Although I only have one os on the computer, I installed grub. The grub menu comes up quickly, and then the machine boots to the starting the kernel message and sits there for many minutes (I haven't timed it).

Once Wary starts, it functions ok but (subjectively slower than ME did.

Today, I booted Pup Classic (2.14, version 10) from a CD. This also demonstrated a prolonged time to start the kernel and after booting to the desktop seems sluggish.

I have looked on the forum for estimates of normal functioning with different puppies and puplets with "vintage" PCs, but haven't seen threads discussing this with times for tasks in minutes and seconds.

So, I am not sure if this is clearly "abnormal" or not.

Would appreciate commends and referrals to appropriate discussion.

Also, advice on which log files to look at and what might be common problems requiring tweaks.

Thanks

Steve

[Jasper]

Hi,

Does your Puppy have access to a swap file or a swap partition?

If not, try to set up one of say, at least 256 MB and ideally 400 or 512 MB if you have have sufficient free space and then let us know if you get a marked improvement in your speeds.

My regards

[stevesr0]

Thanks for reply.

It has a ~380 meg swap partition.

[RetroTechGuy]

I have an old PC with a 266 Pentium CPU, 192 megs of ram and 6 gig HD.

I had two 3 gig partitions, one running WinME and the other Caldera Linux.

This machine came this way.

Subjectively, the boot up time was OK with each OS and I did not have problems with speed of programs.

Recently, however, I decided to try to install puppy linux. I ended up reformatting as ext3 and
installing wary puppy as a full install.

Although I only have one os on the computer, I installed grub. The grub menu comes up quickly, and then the machine boots to the starting the kernel message and sits there for many minutes (I haven't timed it).

Once Wary starts, it functions ok but (subjectively slower than ME did.

Today, I booted Pup Classic (2.14, version 10) from a CD. This also demonstrated a prolonged time to start the kernel and after booting to the desktop seems sluggish.

I have looked on the forum for estimates of normal functioning with different puppies and puplets with "vintage" PCs, but haven't seen threads discussing this with times for tasks in minutes and seconds.

So, I am not sure if this is clearly "abnormal" or not.

I suspect that ME has a similar memory load to Win98. I generally find that Puppy is a slightly heavier load than Win98 on machines (but is far more capable, also). And is far faster than WinXP.

My 333MHz running Lupu5.25 (retro):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=74007

A P2 300MHz Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop, 192MB RAM:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=64548

These both come up reasonably quick (perhaps a minute). Note that they both have sizable swap.

The 5.25 Retro seems to be a lower memory load that other versions -- well worth a try.

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... ppy-5.2.5/

[stevesr0]

I imagine so, but haven't checked.

Both Wary and 2.14 seem to boot as slow on this machine (2.14 as a live CD and Wary as a full install).

I will document the time and come back.

Anyone suggest typical boot "holdups" that can be sought and fixed?

Thanks for replies.

Steve