A Question of Bloat

[mhbell]

A Question of Bloat

Has anyone noticed How Bloated Linux has become? I have been using Linux since the early 90’s. I used Mandrake and the the commercial Versions of Suse until Version 10.1, when I switched to Ubuntu, switching again when Ubuntu came out with Unity at which time I went to Linux Mint and the Cinnamon Desktop as my Primary Linux Desktop. I am now looking for another Distro. It appears that Mint has become overly bloated and slow. For the past month I’ve been running tests on Mint 18.1 with Cinnamon and Windows 10 Home. Here are my findings. Using Window 10 for doing work With Libre Office, Thunderbird, Firefox, Chrome, I find windows 10 to be as fast and in some cases faster than Mint. Now to be fair I used the same programs that I used in Mint. I used tips and tricks to slim down Windows 10 and Linux Mint. Windows 10 from the Grub Menu boots in 15 seconds or less and that includes using the pin at Windows login prompt. Linux Mint was taking as long as 2 min 51 seconds. After turning off NTP (which in Mint really slows down boot time), and doing every speed trick I could find, it still takes 31 to 45 seconds from grub menu to boot into the desktop, and that is with a fresh install and all of the updates.

 

Now I know that Slack, Arch and other Distro’s are fast and don’t have that problem AFAIK, But I don’t use those distro’s. So what is the solution? After only using Microsoft windows maybe once or twice a year, I am finding after getting use to Windows 10 and learning how to use it, that it is a winner. It is fast and runs every program including ones that I need, and use. Some of the same programs that would not run under Linux. I will not use a Virtual Machine and other programs do not work.

 

The problem is not a Underpowered Computer. I just installed a new Asus Motherboard (Amx88-a) 16 GB of DDR3 Ram 2133, and a AMD Kaveri 3.1 Ghz 7600 Radeon R-7 with 2 SSD hard drives. All of that in a ThemalTake Versa 1 Case, So my computer has plenty of power to run any Distro and Windows 10 flys. I also now have a Upgraded Internet connection at 25 Mbs speed test show 29.9 Mbs. I can download a 1.2 GB distro in about 5 minutes.

 

I know that this is long, but am seriously thinking of abandoning Mint. I will wait for the next cycle and see if it improves. Any comments pro or con accepted. No flames please. Lets keep it civil.

Mel

[Hedon James]

Bloat means different things to different people, just as "lightweight" does. Based on your post, it sounds like you define "Bloat" or "lightweight" similar to the way I do...let's call it "responsiveness". My own personal observations & opinions:

 

1. Windows 10 ain't so bad, except for all the services & "phone home" going on in the background. But there are ways to disable most/all of this now (I believe Raymac has posted about this before, and I really need to implement his suggestions). I still prefer Win7, but Win10 is the future. I have both in VMs and will make the full-on switch to Win10 when Win7 ceases to be supported. I have learned to "never say never", but it is extremely unlikely that I will ever run Windows in anything other than a virtual environment. It's inherently insecure & still somewhat unstable, although admittedly better than it was. But it is just SO EASY to restore an archived WinVM, as opposed to troubleshooting. JMO...

 

2. Gnome3, Unity, KDE and Cinnamon have all suffered from "bloat creep" resulting in making each DE more user-friendly to everyday users. It's a balancing act/trade-off. Sounds like the scales have tipped for you. As an Ubuntu Unity user (and fan!), they tipped for me sometime in the Ubuntu 14.04-16.04 cycle. I love the desktop, but the increasing resources to run it aren't worth it, IMO. I looked to "other" desktops that are lighter in resource usage, then tweaked them to resemble Unity. I now have MOST of what I like about Unity, with lower resource requirements and greater responsiveness, but I gave up very little to get it.

 

3. Lighter weight desktops worthy of consideration, IMO, are Mate, XFCE & LXDE. Each is VERY MALLEABLE and TWEAKABLE and can be made to resemble nearly anything you want it to look like. You may have to work a little harder than you used to in order to get it where you want it, but at least we have that option. In fact, Linux encourages that! Totally worth it, IMO! Added bonus, Mint has Mate and XFCE distros, so you won't even have to leave the family!

 

4. An even lighter weight approach would be to start with a window manager desktop, and incorporate the elements of XFCE/Mate/LXDE that you want, such as the panels, file manager, etc... If you're coming from a "fully featured" desktop environment, I'd suggest that #3 is a better approach. But you could certainly "strip down" a distro to its base elements and add DE elements for "skins" or specific tools that you like. I'm a big fan of LXDE for this reason. Besides being lighter than XFCE counterparts, LXDE appears to be more "modular", allowing for many packages to be installed individually, while XFCE has more "meta" or "common" packages. I'm not knocking XFCE at all...just a personal preference for LXDE and stating why it tips the scale for me. Nothing more...

 

With that said, my personal philosophy is that the desktop environment is a "Launcher" for productivity programs. As such, the "launcher" just sits there, idleing, but reserving resources at idle. I want my desktop to use as little resources as possible to draw my desktop so that I can allocate MORE resources to fully-featured productivity programs. For instance, based on resource limitations, perhaps my system running Ubuntu Unity will require 450MB at idle, and therefore best support AbiWord or Gnumeric or mtPaint or Midori or Sylpheed. But using LXDE-Ubuntu (only requiring 200MB at idle), that extra 250MB can be allocated to LibreOffice, GIMP, Firefox/Chrome, and Thunderbird. I don't do any actual work in Unity or LXDE; I do my work in the software applications. So I like my software applications to have access to as much RAM, CPU & GPU as possible. This works for me.

 

Above all else, I'm a big believer in the "right tool for the job", and sometimes the right tool is Windows. I have spent a LOT of time finding replacements for nearly all my favorite Windows programs, and I run my business on Linux computer, with Linux software titles. I still need access to Windows, as my accountant insists on Quickbooks; and some of my information services on the internet insist on Silverlight and Flash plugins for government websites. But those are OTHER peoples' requirements, not mine! If Windows is the "right tool" for most of the jobs you use a computer for, then maybe you should be using Windows.

 

Do what you gotta do...but I'd recommend #3 above....look at lighter weight versions of the Mint distro (or whatever family you prefer) and customize it to resemble the paradigm that suits you.

[securitybreach]

Well said Hedon

[mhbell]

Thank You Hedon. I probably should have said that I have also downloaded over the years over 2 or 3 thousand Distro's, LXLE is one of my favorites also Debian but it is way behind the times. I also find that there are to many "wanta Be" Distros that are crap period. Over 90 percent of the distros that I have downloaded have been junk, don't work don't install don't recognize hardware without jumping through hoops to get it to work. Mint works out of the box, so does Ubuntu, also Debian, Suse, and a few others. Fedora works. I don't like RPM or other non debian package managers and I don't like to have to compile kernels and source files. Maybe I will go back to LXLE, but that doesn't help me with the programs I have to use that will only run in windows. Maybe I should try a VM as I have enough Ram and power to do so. Don't know how that will work trying to use windows 10 in a VM. Guess I will have to do some more exploring.

Thanks again Hedon. you have given me some Ideas

Mel

[raymac46]

I'm not sure if I made suggestions for lightening up Windows or not. The digest of my personal recommendations is:

• Make sure you don't have RAM wasting apps like Skype running if you don't need it.
  
• Try to substitute FOSS programs like Firefox, Thunderbird and Libre Office for the Microsoft ones.
  
• Make sure whatever security apps you run are efficient and as lightweight as possible.
  
• Get rid of bloatware from any new machine you buy.
  
• Don't add free apps that purport to improve performance. Chances are they won't
  
• Use CCleaner once in a while.
  

My comparisons between Windows 10 and Linux Mint Cinnamon show me that Linux Mint still has a far lower memory footprint (4GB vs 1.5 GB with a browser running) and I subjectively feel that it is far snappier in performance. There are lighter desktops like Xfce or a window manager like IceWM if you want to slim down. Personally with 16 GB of RAM a little bloat doesn't bother me.

Edited February 28, 2017 by raymac46

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Your issue, mhbell, isn't Liinux. It's the desktop management and the added software and features that distros choose to include as the basic package. Mint, for example, was always loaded up with goodies. That was their selling point years ago. It came out of the box with all those fun things that you had to download and install if you wanted them in Ubuntu. And speaking of Ubuntu, they've done their best to create the "go-to" distro for people coming over from MS Windows. In order to do that, they've loaded up and bloated up. It's the nature of the beast.

 

GNU/Linux (the operating system, not the distribution) has increased in kernel size and features, too, over the years. However, these upgrades were for more "under-the-hood" tweaks for stability, security, and compatibility with newer hardware and processors.

 

If you want "lite" and you don't want to run already lite distributions, then you're going to have to adjust and trim the distros you do choose to use. Remove all software that you don't ever use. Remove services that you know you'll never use... Bluetooth, for example. Many services run in the background on Ubuntu, Mint, and other distros right out of the box because they are, as mentioned above, trying to make a Linux that MS Windows users can deal with; in other words, easy point, click, and go operation.

 

My Slack boots to command line login in about 20 seconds or so. The X server comes up in about 2 seconds. When I click on buttons on the panel or in the menu to start apps, they start almost literally at the blink of the eye. Of course, I'm running a 6-core processor with 12Gig of RAM, so that helps.

 

Anywho... if you like Ubuntu (try Xubuntu, by the way) or Mint, install 'em and TRIM 'EM DOWN! You'll notice performance like the Ubuntu/Mint of old.

 

Have fun!

 

~Eric

[raymac46]

Here's a good article on Windows 10 privacy issues.

I have followed a few like getting Cortana to go away.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/224616/30-ways-windows-10-phones-home/

[mhbell]

Thanks Raymac and Eric for your reply. Raymac I've already removed most of Microsofts crap and Spyware from windows 10 and have leaned it way down. That is why it is so fast I disabled and uninstalled using a couple of utilities one which Sunrat recommended. I also did the same with Mint which improved it from 2min 51 sec from grub to the desktop to 35 to 45 sec. I am going to still try to improve that. I downloaded 5 new distro's tonight and will install them to the hard drives and test them with a stop watch. I am using LXLE right now and it is fast so far. I did MX-16 earlier. I will keep a log and post back my findings when done testing. Eric good point! don't know if I can do much with cinnamon desktop. I've already made about 50 changes to mint. More experimenting to do.

Mel

[raymac46]

Good luck Mel and I'm sure you'll find something suitable. Hedon James and Josh have lots of experience with window managers so they'll be able to help you tweak things.

Personally I tend to tailor my distro to the hardware on hand. With a quad core and tons of RAM anything will do the job, including Windows 10 (which I agree is a pretty good O/S.) On something like that I'll run Linux Mint Cinnamon. An SSD gives me pretty good boot times, although I haven't worried because you boot once a day, maybe twice.

For a netbook with decent RAM it's MX-16 with Xfce or Linux Mint Xfce. A slower processor and limited RAM needs a lighter touch.

For old 32 bit junk I'll run AntiX with iceWM.

All of these are Debian distros but you could choose Arch and install whatever desktop you want. Or try Manjaro.

Edited February 28, 2017 by raymac46

[Hedon James]

Thank You Hedon. I probably should have said that I have also downloaded over the years over 2 or 3 thousand Distro's, LXLE is one of my favorites also Debian but it is way behind the times. I also find that there are to many "wanta Be" Distros that are crap period. Over 90 percent of the distros that I have downloaded have been junk, don't work don't install don't recognize hardware without jumping through hoops to get it to work. Mint works out of the box, so does Ubuntu, also Debian, Suse, and a few others. Fedora works. I don't like RPM or other non debian package managers and I don't like to have to compile kernels and source files. Maybe I will go back to LXLE, but that doesn't help me with the programs I have to use that will only run in windows. Maybe I should try a VM as I have enough Ram and power to do so. Don't know how that will work trying to use windows 10 in a VM. Guess I will have to do some more exploring.Thanks again Hedon. you have given me some IdeasMel

 

Agree with your comments about the multitude of Linux distros. Not a fan of changing the default icons and calling it a new distro. And if we looked hard enough, we could probably find a distro for left-handed people, with pre-configured files to reverse mouse-click buttons. While it's a PITA to wade through the plethora of offerings to find the gold nuggets, it's a strength that we have these options, IMO...even if all the options aren't desirable.I also like LXLE, but I'm not fond of their software choices. I end up replacing nearly everything with my personal preferences, but it is tuned VERY WELL to be quite responsive....even on "old" hardware! After I stole their philosophy of "minimal resources to desktop, then reallocate them to programs", I used their model as inspiration to remix Lubuntu to MY preferences. LXLE is an LXDE-based distro, which I mentioned above in my lightweight comments as being in the "sweet spot" of light weight, customizable, and user-friendly. If you like LXLE, but not the software, you can always rip out what you don't want and replace with your preferences; if you like their software but want a more recent version, add PPAs. If you want to use your customized LXLE on multiple machines but don't cherish the idea of repeating the process multiple times, LXLE used to be created with RemasterSys, so it was VERY EASY to remix LXLE to your liking and create an ISO of same. Remastersys is no longer supported, so I'm not sure if they're still patching it to make it work, or if they switched to something else. Systemback is probably the best tool to create an ISO for multiple installs for yourself.

 

When anyone is looking for a more responsive system, I invoke the 80/20 rule. Nothing is 100%, but you can get 80% of the way there with only 20% of the work; and you'll work 80% harder trying to squeeze out that last 20%. So what's the 20% that will get you 80% of what you can increase? IMO...

 

1. Better hardware. SSDs for boot drives are phenomenal. If you can afford an SSD to store your data, do it. But at a minimum, purchase the largest SSD you can afford to boot with. For a single OS boot config, 32GB is plenty, but I'd suggest that 64GB is better, and allows for dual-booting. 120GB seems to be a sweet spot for pricing...twice the drive, but not twice the price. Also, bump your RAM. In today's world, I think 8GB is the minimum for a frustration-free experience. 16GB is better, for not a lot more. I have a 32GB RAM system that I use for pretty intensive DVD ripping, and MP4 encoding, while I am using Chrome or Firefox with several tabs to look things up; but I have never used 16GB (according to me conky monitor). I paid for more than I use, but I'm future proofed!

 

2. Lighter weight desktop environment. Discussed above. Find the lightest weight desktop environment that suits your preference. XFCE and LXDE are prime candidates. While I think LXDE is the sweet spot, the vast majority of folks seem to prefer XFCE. Fact is, LXDE is lighter weight than XFCE, even though LXDE does incorporate some XFCE tools/utilities. However, XFCE is more polished and "integrated", with centralized control panel for settings tweaks. For the majority of folks, the incremental increase in XFCE resource requirements is a bargain price to pay for the incremental increase in "useability" and "tweakability". Who am I to say they are wrong? I would only counter that you can make every tweak in LXDE that you can in XFCE; it's just that you have to work a little harder, as the settings aren't all located in one central location, i.e. Control Panel. Go with what suits your personal preferences.

 

3. Lighter weight window manager. This is a relatively new discovery for me, but I'm a firm believer now. In fact, this MAY be the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT change you can make to increase performance on your machine. Part of what makes LXDE so lightweight is its tight integration with Openbox as a window manager. Openbox is VERY LIGHTWEIGHT, extremely functional, and integrates seamlessly with LXDE. Same goes for all of the Openbox-like window managers, including Fluxbox, PekWM, IceWM, etc... Every one of these can replace Openbox with no adverse effects, and all are similarly light on resources. So you have options again...but back to the default WM discusison. LXDE tends to hide the Openbox interface with LXsession/Desktop Preferences, which default to hiding "window manager" menus. But this is easily changed simply by checking the box to "allow" those menus to appear with a desktop right-click. While I can understand why many "typical" users wouldn't like this, this GREATLY increases usability/productivity, IMO. You can have it either way. The window manager is still there, doing its thing in a lightweight fashion; it's only a matter of how much you "see" and "use" other features. In fact, if you grow to prefer this, you can skip the DE altogether and just use the Window Manager as your desktop, completely eliminating the DE layer. (I'm not there yet. While I see the merits, I still prefer the DE managed by the WM).

 

For a new user of the LXDE desktop, I'd recommend just sticking with the default Openbox configuration, with Openbox menus hidden by default. Later on, I'd recommend checking the box to allow the Openbox menus to be visible with a right click, AND configuring the Openbox menu to your preferences, with favorites/shortcuts/etc... If this grows on you (as it did for me), keep it! If it does not, hide it again. If you like the right click menus, but not fond of Openbox, tell me what you don't like about it and I'll tell you how to address, or which of its "sister" window managers you should look into. While each are very similar in form and usability, each has a unique set of features that makes it a "better" choice than its "sisters". For instance, Fluxbox is configured with plain text files (as opposed to Openbox html configs) and provides for "tabbed windows" (similar to tabbed browsing), and the ability to "remember" settings like desktop placement, workspace placement, min/max preferences, etc... PekWM is very similar to Fluxbox, and configured with plain text, but with different syntax formatting, and provides the same features, but adds "edge" actions and "corner" actions. For instance, if you like Openbox, but it's a PITA to configure, I'd suggest Fluxbox is a better fit for you. If you like Fluxbox, but have added "brightside" to implement "hot corners" and "hot edges", I'd suggest that PekWM is a better fit for you (and also lighter weight, as PekWM is probably lighter than Fluxbox+Brightside).

 

Hope I didn't provide too much information and blow your mind. I just figure that too much info is ALWAYS preferable to not enough. What should mhbell do? Only you can answer that, but based on nothing more than what you have disclosed here, I'd recommend the following:

 

1. You've already upgraded your hardware sufficiently (IMO), so move to items #2 & #3.

 

2. You're using Mint for a reason. If the only reason you're dissatisfied is the Cinnamon bloat, switch to Mint XFCE or Mint Mate and see if that's good enough.

 

3. If you like XFCE or Mate, but still looking for a boost, switch window managers. Download Openbox, or Fluxbox, or PekWM and add an entry in the XFCE or Mate autostart entries to the effect of "openbox --replace", or "fluxbox --replace", or "pekwm --replace" and see how that suits you. Later on, we'll figure out how to expose the right click window manager menu on the desktop.

 

4. If you're STILL looking to squeeze a little extra juice, we can download the Mint LXDE package and boot into that desktop. I know Mint doesn't provide an LXDE distro OOTB anymore, but the package is still available for user-installation.

 

5. If you're STILL not satisfied, you'll need a new distro! But I'm pretty confident that if you like Mint (other than bloat issues), you will be able to retain Mint simply by switching DE and/or WM.

 

I've gone on a similar journey recently, but instigated by Ubuntu & Unity, so I'm happy to pay it forward. Let me know what you need, and I'll provide it if I can! Good luck!

 

** EDIT: forgot to address Win10. I use Win10 in a VirtualBox VM with no issues whatsoever, FWIW. I'd be interested to know what windows applications you require that necessitate Win10. Perhaps there is an alternative that would suit just fine, if only you knew it existed?

Edited February 28, 2017 by Hedon James

[securitybreach]

Wow, another great comment Hedon!!

[mhbell]

 

** EDIT: forgot to address Win10. I use Win10 in a VirtualBox VM with no issues whatsoever, FWIW. I'd be interested to know what windows applications you require that necessitate Win10. Perhaps there is an alternative that would suit just fine, if only you knew it existed?

To answer your question I need Garmin Express To update my maps for my GPS's also Tom Tom. I have tried the work arounds and other programs, Turbo tax and other software, but none work in Linux. . My wife has some craft and card making programs that won't run in Linux. She uses Mint for everything else. None work in Linux and no programs to replace them with. The programs I mainly use in Linux are Lebre Office, Thunderbird, Firefox, Chrome, and Gimp. I use the same programs in Windows 10 along with the programs that won't run in Linux. For me it is easier to Dual Boot than to try and install windows in a VM. Maybe I should take a closer look at a VM. I guess that I am frustrated after using Linux for over 20 years that it is the same old problems. Yes Linux has come a long ways, but still has to go further.

 

I got tired of every year having to put windows back on my computer so I could run the programs that was needed to do my taxes and update maps along with other things. my old computer had swapable hard drive racks 4 of them. Since changing to my new computer I have Icydock with 2 swapable SSD drives of 250 GB each. I also have a 5 Terabyte Hub usb 3.0. I finally broke down and bought Windows 10 which to my surprise Works great runs all of my programs and is fast after I leaned it way down. Maybe I will use it as primary and linux as secondary. There are many choices out there. thank you for all of your imput.

Mel

[raymac46]

As of March 2017 I figure there are only 3 things I need Windows for:

• Turbo Tax - I might be able to run this in WINE but I file online and I don't want to screw up. An alternative would be to use the Web based version which obviously is O/S agnostic.
  
• Train Simulator games - these are on Steam but Windows only.
  
• Tom Tom GPS updates. Tom Tom should get with the program as they ARE Linux.
  

Another nice to have is ACDSee photo management - I like it better than the Linux programs but I could live with Shotwell if necessary.

Edited February 28, 2017 by raymac46

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Wow, another great comment Hedon!!

 

He's getting paid by the word.

[securitybreach]

Wow, another great comment Hedon!!

 

He's getting paid by the word.

 

I think so...

[Hedon James]

Wow, another great comment Hedon!!

 

Call me butter, cuz I'm on a roll! And I do get paid by the word, I just don't know what the going rate is? Where's my money?!

[mhbell]

Some results.

After tweaking all of the distros and windows 10 here are the results so far using a stop watch and starting from the Grub menu to the desktop.

Mint 18.1 cinnamon 13.9 seconds

 

LXLE 14.0 seconds

 

MX-16 11.2 seconds

 

Windows 10 18.3 seconds

 

Not bad. I build all of my own computers except laptops. I think I can get Mint down even more.

Mel

[Hedon James]

** EDIT: forgot to address Win10. I use Win10 in a VirtualBox VM with no issues whatsoever, FWIW. I'd be interested to know what windows applications you require that necessitate Win10. Perhaps there is an alternative that would suit just fine, if only you knew it existed?

To answer your question I need Garmin Express To update my maps for my GPS's also Tom Tom. I have tried the work arounds and other programs, Turbo tax and other software, but none work in Linux. . My wife has some craft and card making programs that won't run in Linux. She uses Mint for everything else. None work in Linux and no programs to replace them with. The programs I mainly use in Linux are Lebre Office, Thunderbird, Firefox, Chrome, and Gimp. I use the same programs in Windows 10 along with the programs that won't run in Linux. For me it is easier to Dual Boot than to try and install windows in a VM. Maybe I should take a closer look at a VM. I guess that I am frustrated after using Linux for over 20 years that it is the same old problems. Yes Linux has come a long ways, but still has to go further.

 

I got tired of every year having to put windows back on my computer so I could run the programs that was needed to do my taxes and update maps along with other things. my old computer had swapable hard drive racks 4 of them. Since changing to my new computer I have Icydock with 2 swapable SSD drives of 250 GB each. I also have a 5 Terabyte Hub usb 3.0. I finally broke down and bought Windows 10 which to my surprise Works great runs all of my programs and is fast after I leaned it way down. Maybe I will use it as primary and linux as secondary. There are many choices out there. thank you for all of your imput.

Mel

 

Fair enough on your required Windows programs. I'm not aware of any viable replacements for any of those. Best you can hope for is WINE, but if that's the case, why not just go "native" with Win in a VM. And FWIW, based on what you described, you should ABSOLUTELY be running Windows in a VM. You've got the horsepower, so I can't think of a single downside for you. In fact, running Windows in a VM would allow you to bring your Windows environment (including pre-installed windows programs) forward with you to another machine, just like you bring your data/docs from your home directory. You will absolutely LOVE running windows software in a WindowsVM on your linux machine, no different than running LibreOffice or any other native linux app. You can also reclaim your disk space from the native Windows install, and re-allocate it to your VM.

 

Actually, I just thought of a negative. You can install Win10 in a virtual environment on the machine it came with; it's licensed to the hardware; but only on that machine. If you want to bring Win10 forward with you, you'll have to purchase a Win10 license, but you can do that in the future, at such time as it may be needed.

 

Lastly, Linux HAS come a long way, but I think I'll respectfully disagree that it has a ways to go. It's ready for the general public NOW. It's the software vendors that have a ways to go. But it's a chicken & egg proposition where more developers would provide linux software if there were more linux users; but there would be more linux users if their favorite software was available for linux. It's changing....slowly...but the progress is glacial.

[Hedon James]

Some results.

After tweaking all of the distros and windows 10 here are the results so far using a stop watch and starting from the Grub menu to the desktop.

Mint 18.1 cinnamon 13.9 seconds

 

LXLE 14.0 seconds

 

MX-16 11.2 seconds

 

Windows 10 18.3 seconds

 

Not bad. I build all of my own computers except laptops. I think I can get Mint down even more.

Mel

 

Glad you're making progress, but allow me to play devil's advocate. How often do you shutdown/reboot your machine? Are boot times really that important? My uptimes are often 20-90 days between reboots, and even then it's only because of a new kernel. (side note: whatever happened to live patching of the kernel? is that feature only available for server kernels?) I like it to reboot fast, but when it happens so infrequently, slower boot times are more tolerable. I haven't clocked mine, but I sit & watch it happen and I'd estimate 10-20 seconds for a complete shutdown and reboot. I've never felt the urge to trim that down...

[mhbell]

Actually, I just thought of a negative. You can install Win10 in a virtual environment on the machine it came with; it's licensed to the hardware; but only on that machine. If you want to bring Win10 forward with you, you'll have to purchase a Win10 license, but you can do that in the future, at such time as it may be needed.

That is no problem. Because I build my own machines I bought the Commercial version of windows 10 and can move (transfer) windows 10 to any machine as long as I take it off of the other machine first.

Mel

[securitybreach]

Some results.

After tweaking all of the distros and windows 10 here are the results so far using a stop watch and starting from the Grub menu to the desktop.

Mint 18.1 cinnamon 13.9 seconds

 

LXLE 14.0 seconds

 

MX-16 11.2 seconds

 

Windows 10 18.3 seconds

 

Not bad. I build all of my own computers except laptops. I think I can get Mint down even more.

Mel

 

Glad you're making progress, but allow me to play devil's advocate. How often do you shutdown/reboot your machine? Are boot times really that important? My uptimes are often 20-90 days between reboots, and even then it's only because of a new kernel. (side note: whatever happened to live patching of the kernel? is that feature only available for server kernels?) I like it to reboot fast, but when it happens so infrequently, slower boot times are more tolerable. I haven't clocked mine, but I sit & watch it happen and I'd estimate 10-20 seconds for a complete shutdown and reboot. I've never felt the urge to trim that down...

 

While I agree that you do not need to reboot often(except for kernel updates.. more frequently on Arch) but you can trim your boot time using various mount flags and only use the startup services you need. For instance, here is mine on my main rig:

 

comhack@Cerberus ~ % systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 1.489s (kernel) + 2.165s (userspace) = 3.654s

[securitybreach]

Actually, I just thought of a negative. You can install Win10 in a virtual environment on the machine it came with; it's licensed to the hardware; but only on that machine. If you want to bring Win10 forward with you, you'll have to purchase a Win10 license, but you can do that in the future, at such time as it may be needed.

That is no problem. Because I build my own machines I bought the Commercial version of windows 10 and can move (transfer) windows 10 to any machine as long as I take it off of the other machine first.

Mel

 

Nice

[mhbell]

Glad you're making progress, but allow me to play devil's advocate. How often do you shutdown/reboot your machine? Are boot times really that important? My uptimes are often 20-90 days between reboots, and even then it's only because of a new kernel. (side note: whatever happened to live patching of the kernel? is that feature only available for server kernels?) I like it to reboot fast, but when it happens so infrequently, slower boot times are more tolerable. I haven't clocked mine, but I sit & watch it happen and I'd estimate 10-20 seconds for a complete shutdown and reboot. I've never felt the urge to trim that down...

I boot my computer several times a day and shut it down every night or morning. depends on when I go to bed. LoL! Now that I have the boot times acceptable It is time to work on some of the programs like, Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird, which all run faster or the same in Windows 10. Why? I aim to find out if possible. I am not a dev or programmer, so don't know if it is possible.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Mel, GREAT JOB!

[V.T. Eric Layton]

While I agree that you do not need to reboot often...

 

 

HAHAHA! Reboot often? I shutdown completely whenever I'm not sitting in front of the soul (electricity) sucking box.

 

My current uptime:

 

vtel57@ericsbane07~:$ uptime

14:17:38 up 5:30, 2 users, load average: 0.04, 0.04, 0.08

 

BAHAHAHA! ;

[mhbell]

While I agree that you do not need to reboot often...

 

 

HAHAHA! Reboot often? I shutdown completely whenever I'm not sitting in front of the soul (electricity) sucking box.

 

My current uptime:

 

vtel57@ericsbane07~:$ uptime

14:17:38 up 5:30, 2 users, load average: 0.04, 0.04, 0.08

 

BAHAHAHA! ;

mine

real 0m0.000s

user 0m0.000s

sys 0m0.000s

[raymac46]

ray@ray-basement-SSD ~ $ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 4.016s (kernel) + 7.179s (userspace) = 11.196s
ray@ray-basement-SSD ~ $

 

This is Linux Mint 18 on my desktop system. I boot when needed and shut down after use.

[securitybreach]

ray@ray-basement-SSD ~ $ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 4.016s (kernel) + 7.179s (userspace) = 11.196s
ray@ray-basement-SSD ~ $

 

This is Linux Mint 18 on my desktop system. I boot when needed and shut down after use.

 

Nice

[raymac46]

I was getting 35 second boot times until I disabled ipv6. That brought it down to where it is now.

[securitybreach]

I was getting 35 second boot times until I disabled ipv6. That brought it down to where it is now.

 

Well it was probably searching for something it could not find. The majority of IPs are still ipv4.