fs not in ram

[jls]

Hi
In order to improve boot speed I was thinking to give the the possibility to the user to have the fs not in ram but persistent, so tce-setup doesn't have to link anything from /tmp/tcloop, because file are already on the fs.
Thanks

[Jason W]

We did have this option with Tinycore in the early days, making /usr/local mounted to a persistend area.

It is the startup scripts that take the majority of the load time, the copying happens in a couple of seconds.  And since it is not /usr/local where all the files of extensions get placed to, it would involve a switch root to that mounted area.  It would mean pretty much a transition to a hard drive installed distro, not just an option that is reasonable to add in.

[jls]

Hi,
in which sense not reasonable .
You write about TC early days, and it comes to my mind DSL, since the old TC users where before DSL users.
In DSL there was the possibility of an HD install.
having a persistent FS are you sure tce.installed scripts should be executed? Only the 1st time they are installed I think.
sces could be persistent using a copy2fs or not.
an fs=xxx boot option could be added, and if there is already the filesystem on the partition it's used otherwise the FS will be created
sce-remove will then unmount or delete the files (I know purists don't like this).
modern DE (programs) take care of starting system process they need, f.e. pulseaudio, dbus, wpa_supplicant, policykit.
Maybe we should look on the DSL installer script.
Maybe is the very hot weather of this days here in my country which makes this thoughts

[Jason W]

So much has changed since the days of that certain previous distro, and also since the early Tinycore days.  This would require a total re-write of dCore.  Basically turning it into a standard hard drive installed distro.  I understand the desire to speed up extension loading.   But things like a standard hard drive install done by me would require a full support fo that method.  Which a standard hard drive install via the dCore method would mean many problems.  The Core way is not a traditional hard drive install. 

[netnomad]

hi friends,

in my opinion the basic ideas of tinycore and dcore are still exciting.

but i think that there are some ways to improve the boot time, cause i guess that there are some time outs that could be avoided...
in my case that first boot part takes around 20s,
then for about 40s happens seemingly almost nothing...
a long timeout time period that could be perhaps avoided?

in my older setups the complete boot process was around 30s...
i know that there is a tool to analyze the boot process, but i have to admit that i didn't use it yet.

thank you for your hints and help.

[Misalf]

Not running dCore, but I have added stuff like ntfs-3g, Xorg-7.7, fonts, icons, more apps and custom scripts to a few additional initrds. That's more for Core to copy to RAM, yet it boots a few second quicker (5 seconds fo Xorg allone) on atom 1.6 GHz netbook. 2¢.

[Jason W]

Netnomad - use the "showapps" boot option, that 40s you are talking about has to be extension loading.