DSL Embedded :: faster boot



Since DSL embedded, using Qemu's virtual machine, has little to no access to the physical machine, I find I get noticeably faster boot times when adding the following to the end of the -append section of dsl-windows.bat   noscsi nousb nofirewire nopcmcia
Robert,

Some of these other codes might also speed things up, but then again maybe some of them are needed depending on your preferences, IE: sound

Code Sample
atapicd noideraid nosound noapic noacpi acpi=off noscsi noapm nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce

Since the virtual machine has soundbaster I would like to try to preserve that one. Also, I was trying to hit the options that I could notice an improvement. Maybe a balance from having a very long append to speed improvement. But thanks, will test some more. On my old machine anything that helps helps me alot. I will add these to the next release of DSL.
Certainly some of them are worth doing due to the hardware specs:

atapicd = qemu has no CD burner. IDE-SCSI emulation not needed
noideraid = qemu has no IDE raid controller
noacpi = power management is irrelevent for a virtual PC
acpi=off   =  DITTO
noapm = DITTO
noscsi = no SCSI controllers or USB storage devices in QEMU
nousb = no USB controllers in QEMU
nofirewire = no firewire controllers in QEMU
noagp = assume emulated video card is NOT an AGP card
nopcmcia = no pcmcia controller in QEMU
nomce = no machine check exception handling is needed for a virtual PC

I am less sure about the appropriateness of:
nosound = we do have sound, but the driver is manually loaded by us. Maybe this cheatcode is still a good thing.  It is bad if the soundcard suddenly stops working.
noapic = I think virtual Pentium-II does have an APIC but could be wrong.

The power management options have negligible effect on speed of booting. apic is needed.
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