Distro boot times

I was curious about the boot times of various distros, so decided to waste some of my life doing a bit of experimenting. I used the same computer with a simple installation on identical hard disks. I pressed the start button on a stopwatch at the same time as the power on of the computer, so the times include the cold boot process as well as time required to log in.

openSUSE 12.3 (x64) Gnome 1m 22 sec
Fedora 18 (x64) Gnome 1m 46 sec
Windows 7 Pro (x68-32) 1m 04 sec

I also compared the Live CD versions of several distros using the above method. As expected, the times were quite a bit longer.

CR-OS (openSUSE Studio derivative) 2m 52 sec
Knoppix 7.05 1m 58 sec
openSUSE 12.2 1m 47 sec
openSUSE 12.3 4m 35 sec
Lite Portable Security 4m 05 sec

I always keep a live knoppix at my disposal but can't believe the time difference between Suse 12.2 + 12.3.

What did you use for the stop time? I don't know about windows 7, but older versions got to the desktop fairly quickly, but you couldn't really do anything for a bit as opposed to some other OSs that would let you start working almost immediately.

That time difference between Suse 12.2 and 12.3 is rather remarkable. Hope that's just the Live CD.

bozo wrote:

, but you couldn't really do anything for a bit as opposed to some other OSs that would let you start working almost immediately.

You are quite right in that respect, so I did a bit more testing. I clicked on an icon as soon as it appeared, and stopped timing when the application opened. You might argue that the app may still not be ready for action at this point, but latency varies for apps as well, si I thought this would be a good place to stop. The results are for installed versions:
openSUSE 12.3 1m 35 sec
Windows 7 2m 13 sec

bozo wrote:

,That time difference between Suse 12.2 and 12.3 is rather remarkable. Hope that's just the Live CD.

Yes these were live CD's. I thought perhaps the difference was due to a bad burn, although I always compare ISO/CD hashes to make sure, so I burned another copy. Same results. Thinking that perhaps GNOME was to blame, I also buned a KDE live CD. Once again, I timed both from power-on to where the menu shows up.

openSUSE 12.3 GNOME 4m 35 sec
openSUSE 12.3 KDE 4m 20 sec

Not a stellar performance by any account.

Thanks for the retest and update.

You have to wonder about those live CDs. Since they're supposed to be used to see if you like the distro you'd think they'd want them to be fairly quick so they'd be a good sell. Those kind of boot times aren't a very good selling point.

Quote :

You have to wonder about those live CDs. Since they're supposed to be used to see if you like the distro you'd think they'd want them to be fairly quick so they'd be a good sell. Those kind of boot times aren't a very good selling point.

That's why I usually check out the critique in mags. like Linux Pro first. I will try out a distro depending on it's reviews.

So far openSUSE seems to have had the best over all reviews.

I agree. 12.3 is definitely solid, and openSUSE is still the best supported of all distros in my opinion.
The live CD's are not a bonus however. Version 12.2 was twice as fast to load. It's a pity, because as bozo points out, that's the first exposure to the distro.

I've always found live cd/dvds to be hit and miss on performance and even working. I think knoppix and puppy are the only ones that consitently worked for me.

bdquick wrote:

I've always found live cd/dvds to be hit and miss

Same here, but this is the biggest deterrent to attracting new users. I don't know anyone who went to a straight installation without checking out the live version first. "Good bye if the domo don't shine!"