2001-02-01 12:33:45

by Wojtek Pilorz

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Disk is cheap?

On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Robert Kaiser wrote:

> Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 17:12:47 +0100
> From: Robert Kaiser <[email protected]>
> To: Patrizio Bruno <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Disk is cheap?
>
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] (Patrizio Bruno) writes:
> > I built a embedded dvd/cdda/mp3 player based on linux, using a p200mmx
> > with 24mb with a bus of 75mhx, but it still takes about 20 seconds to boot,
> > I think that an embedded device (for home use) should boot in less than
> > 5 seconds, how could be possible with a slow p133? (I've also tried a p133
> > on 66mhz of bus and it takes almost 35 seconds to boot)
>
> Usually most of the startup time is spent by the BIOS doing
> extensive self-test stuff and for firing up services (http,
> inetd, sendmail, ...) that many embedded systems have little use for.
>
> I have a 25MHz 386EX (~2.2 Bogomips) here that boots Linux out of ROM
> in roughly 30 seconds. Most of _that_ time however is spent decompressing
> the kernel.
>
[...]
If someone would modify kernel to allow LZO compression then the
decompression would be 3 times faster at the expense of
compressed part of the image being 9..10% larger (assuming LZO1X-999/9
method used by lzop -9)
(I have done decompression speed tests on Pentium MMX 166 MHz)

Best regards,

Wojtek
--------------------
Wojtek Pilorz
[email protected]