Slashdot Log In
Boot Windows Faster, Using Linux
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jan 24, 2004 07:30 PM
from the linux-to-the-rescue dept.
from the linux-to-the-rescue dept.
BiOFH writes "TechNewsWorld is reporting that InterVideo has a solution for slow boot times runing Windows XP MCE. 'The new Linux-based InstantOn software -- designed to help Windows XP Media Center Edition PCs boot more quickly -- is aimed at taking advantage of the power of Intel's Pentium processors, not at fixing fragmented hard drives. The software integrates into the computer's BIOS and the operating system.'" According to this article, the software uses a small Linux partition on the user's hard drive. I wonder how BIOSes with hard-wired Microsoft-based DRM would cooperate with this scheme.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Vaporware! (Score:5, Informative)
Any CD-based Linux distro can achieve the a similar effect with far more functionality.
Re:Vaporware! (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I really doubt you can show me a live CD that can hand off to an installed Windows.
Furthermore, live CDs, while great, are not the solution to slow boot times.
And just cause it's related, I set up my VectorLinux (with kernel 2.6.1) to boot right into KDE, and timed it against Windows XP (on the same computer, so there's no hardware advantages). From pressing enter in Grub to being inside
Re:Vaporware! (Score:5, Funny)
Alas, I think there are plenty that do already.
Parent
Re:Vaporware! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vaporware! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Vaporware! (Score:5, Informative)
Since you don't install the security updates (which require a reboot) I certainly hope your computer isn't connected to the Internet. Otherwise it's probably been turned into a zombied relay for spammers who are all too happy with your 92 day uptime.
Parent
Re:Vaporware! (Score:4, Informative)
You know, when you're not using your computer for long periods of time (say, 92 days) you should shut it off. Needless to say, my experiences with XP's stability have been a bit less sterling than yours. (Generally after a few days it's good and ready for a reboot. If I'm developing, once a day minimum).
Parent
Need to re-boot != instability always. THINK! (Score:3, Informative)
Stability and having to re-boot to install *certain* software packages have nothing to do with each other. Yes, the need to re-boot for certain installs is a weak point for Windows, but that's not the same thing as stability.
It's understandable that many here do not like Windows. But many people also understand that certain applications don't run on Linux, nor have *nix equivalents. We who must use these app
Re:Vaporware! (Score:4, Informative)
A computer is hardly an efficient space heater. (An effective one, yes, but mostly because current systems use huge amounts of power.) If you want to save energy, turn off the PC when you're not going to be using it and use the furnace.
Parent
Re:Vaporware! (Score:3, Informative)
Hibernate is called the S4 sleep state. It is still using power because some peripheals can wake the machine. Wake-on-LAN, Wake-on-Ring, etc.
Re:Vaporware! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm afraid I've been feeding a troll who came in yelling "moron," but who clearly has never measured current draw of computers in various states.
If the computer consumed no power how would it be possible to Wake-on-Lan and/or without a full software reboot.
Any form of "Instant On" is using some power for something
Re:Vaporware! (Score:3, Interesting)
Your may very well be right, but what exactly is the 2 or 3 watts used for when the computer is powered off? I can put my (fairly new) Linux-laptop into hibernation (writing all memory pages to disk and turn off), remove its battery and go mountain climbing for a week. It will still power up and recover quite nicely. Of course the battery to keep the clock running is there, but in my experience it uses a great
Re:Vaporware! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
It doesn't boot windows faster! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The makers of LinDVD (Score:2)
Yeah, that would be cool. I've seen it play, and it's pretty much just like the Windows WinDVD.
Another article on their LinDVD based Instant On product in NewScientist [newscientist.com]
Common sense (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer choice, as they say.
KFG
Parent
Re:Common sense (Score:3, Interesting)
The bootvis page explicitely says that it's a poor choice of a tool by end users for improving boot times. So, um... what do you use it for that makes you impressed with it?
It impresses me by shaving significant time off boot times. However Microsoft describe it bootvis can do a lot, depending of course on how fast your boot is already and the factor that is slowing it down. If you load a lot of services at startup then bootvis is a great help.
Or didn't you realise that what Microsoft say, and what
LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, the question is, will Joe User start asking himself "Why can't EVERYTHING run this quickly?", and will the companies start realizing that everything CAN, IF they port their stuff to Linux?
(NOTE: Obviously there is one company that is unlikely to take this action, but perhaps others might.)
Of course, there is always the option of embedding Windows into the system ROM as well.
(shudder)
Re:LinuxBIOS (Score:2)
It isn't some kind of linux based boot loader... (Score:5, Informative)
New MS BIOS source code leaked! (Score:3, Troll)
F000:E05B call check_for_linux
F000:E061 jc do_error_beep_and_halt
F000:E063 nop
F000:E064 nop
F000:E065 nop
F000:E066 int 19
All kidding aside... I write BIOS code for a living, and this scares the crap out of me. What Microsoft wants is to basically eliminate the BIOS, except for the jump to the OS code (the "int 19" above). Windows already does just about everything that we do in the BIOS, like PCI device enumeration, etc...
No doubt, this would make Microsoft's life a lot more simple, but I think it would give them too much control -- way too much. DRM would just be the start of it.
I wonder what the EFI proponents (Intel) think about this deal...
Re:New MS BIOS source code leaked! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:New MS BIOS source code leaked! (Score:5, Interesting)
LinuxBIOS project has the right idea by ideally cutting out as much cruft from the system firmware as possible and leaving it up to the OS to perform initialization, but in reality some tasks are forced onto the firmware by design.
Parent
Re:New MS BIOS source code leaked! (Score:4, Interesting)
Now consider the scenario where BIOSes get bigger. Remember that BIOSes are on a chip, which makes them damn hard for normal home users to replace or modify. If some DRM crap gets put in there, it's nearly impossible to remove. Now that's the part that's scary. The BIOS might refuse to boot unrecognized OSes, in which case you're SOL. But if it's the OS that's handling DRM, well, someone will have a crack for it a week before the OS comes out. Or you can uninstall the OS and run one without DRM, like Linux. Or you can install Linux and write some DRM software. Or whatever.
Parent
MS already has their own BIOS.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If MS was to start producing BIOSes, which Im sure they could do, they would have to maintain compatability with the existing BIOSes of the world.
There are pleanty of things that are not MS OSs that use the BIOS. Ghost. PXE. DOS before Netware (do they still do this?). Recovery CDs. And of course the OSS OSs.
I have no idea how much the license for something like Phoenix BIOS costs. Less then a dollar per mobo, Im sure. Lets say that MS starts giving away their BIOS: How many PC hardware manufacturers are going to switch, to save pennies, at the risk of no longer making PC hardware? The hardware world has settled on using industry standards a long time ago. Not even MS can change that.
Parent
"Entertainment machines" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"Entertainment machines" (Score:3, Insightful)
He's a genius! Or would have been if he made that statemnt 25 years ago.
Shesh. VCR, has a computer(albiet primitive) cd player, dvd player, stereo, Tivo.
The market is here Ro.
Missing the point of Windows Media Center (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows is already faster than linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Meanwhile, my shiny new RHEL 3.0 box isn't mounting NFS filesystems on boot because the network hasn't finished initializing yet. Apparently it takes the network about 30 seconds to come up. Wonder if that's a gigE thing. :(
Re:Windows is already faster than linux (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Windows is already faster than linux (Score:3, Informative)
Who needs fast booting? (Score:2, Funny)
why not use hibernation? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:why not use hibernation? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's also suspend, and it can be almost instant. Suspend to RAM can use less than 5 watts. That's definitely acceptable for a home entertainment system. It's within the range of power used by TVs
Using Linux to boot Windows (Score:5, Funny)
This isn't the solution to the problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
Memory images on disk (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Memory images on disk (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.eros-os.org/project/novelty.html#persi
There's an interesting story regarding Novell there. Anyway, that OS would take snapshots of the entire memory state every N seconds so that even if you pulled the plug out of the wall while the machine was running, you'd be back up to where you left off (minus some seconds) as it simply reloaded everything from disk again.
Parent
Re:Memory images on disk (Score:4, Informative)
"So avoid saving those caches...", well there's a reason they are saving them. If you don't save them, you have to first close all open files, and now your "suspension" isn't transparent. So you've opened the door to two "modes" of program starting, "suspended" and "not suspended", or some such other crap. And re-loading the cache with new, valid data on startup takes time, which defeats the point of this in the first place.
My point is not that there are no solutions to these problems but to try to give a taste of how these things cascade rapidly. OS design is a subtle and tricky work, which only becomes truly apparent once you actually try to sit down and code solutions to these problems.
Parent
Incredible Misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad Benchmarking Screwed up Windows Design (Score:5, Interesting)
Lo, and behold, more and more initialization work for Office, and then IE, started showing up in the Windows boot sequence.
Merging applications into the OS is BAD DESIGN, but it won the poorly thought out benchmarks that many organizations used to select their "productivity" tools. Now Windows, and Windows users will pay the price. Serves them right.
Sure, leave your Windows machines running 24/7 to avoid the boot delay. Linux and OS X users have that option too, but for them it is truly an option, not something they NEED to do.
Re:Bad Benchmarking Screwed up Windows Design (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I think a lot of it is really the GUI and memory resident utilities loading. Try booting Linux into a GNOME session running Enlightenment as the window manager with a ton of applets, buttons and suchlike gewgaws. Almost every Windows box I ever had to service had far too much crap like that running, not to mention spyware. It's a wonder some of them even booted at all, and given a clueless user, a Linux system could be just as bad.
God knows mine was when I first started playing around with X Windows.
Parent
Re:Bad Benchmarking Screwed up Windows Design (Score:4, Interesting)
In a character mode system you can put a prompt up for the user almost immediately. You don't actually have to be ready to process his input yet, just grab keystrokes. You finish initialization while the user is still thinking and typing. You don't need to initialize memory at all. Unless your code is buggy to begin with and you need zeros there for debugging, allocate space as needed and allow it to start out random. I know most modern systems don't do this, but it's been done.
GUI systems are of course a lot more involved. Can the part of the system that draws the screen and all the icons be isolated so as to get that up before loading all the common elements from Internet Explorer, Word, etc (and NO, they don't show up as separate entries on the task list!)? Yes, they probably could, but as those components get more and more bloated they each have their own initialization requirements.
I'm quite sure people at Microsoft don't sit around twiddling their thumbs and TRYING to make the system less efficient. They DO have a vested interest in making ordinary PCs less and less desirable each year so that the hardware upgrade cycle needs to continue. Every new version of Windows has a larger memory footprint and that has to do with putting more and more stuff on the critical path between turning the system on hand handling that first mouse movement.
I was doing my OWN benchmarking of these systems during the NT 3.5-4.0 timeframe and I DO know what I am talking about.
Parent
Fujitsu Lifebook (Score:4, Interesting)
The only downside is the screen is very small so if you're at all far sighted, it's hard to read. Not a problem for her so she's happy.
Too complicated... (Score:3, Informative)
The only drawback is: if you lose power, the DRAMS will be cleared. That could be solved by a UPS or maybe some built-in battery.
Re:Too complicated... (Score:3, Informative)
Acelerating windows (Score:5, Funny)
Why booting takes so long (Score:3, Insightful)
POST? (Score:3, Insightful)
That 25 seconds is a blessing.