Faster Boot on an ECM-1342?


Forum: HD Install
Topic: Faster Boot on an ECM-1342?
started by: josiahbryan

Posted by josiahbryan on Nov. 05 2006,21:33
All -

Any ides on how to speed up boot time for DSL on an ECM-1342 PC104 CPU module? The ECM-1342 has a 133MHz x86 CPU, with 32 MB RAM and a CF slot onboard. I've installed DSL on a 1GB CF card and the board boots off the CF card, loads the CF image as a readonly images vis-a-vi a CDROM boot for DSL.

However, the boot time takes _at_least_ 6 to 8 minutes from boot time to shell prompt (init 3 in dsl boot opts).

Here is the contents of /boot/lilo.conf:

lba32          #enable large disk support
timeout=30     #wait 3 seconds before auto-booting
vga=normal
boot=/dev/hda   #put boot loader in MBR of target disk
root=/dev/hda1 #set root to be partition of target disk
image=/boot/linux24
label=DSL
initrd=/boot/minirt24.gz
read-only
APPEND="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi nofirewire nomce nodma quiet frugal BOOT_IMAGE=/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX  2 ssh nfs syslog nomonkey restore=hdc2  "

(Aside: even though "nomonkey" is in there, monkey still starts. Any idea why?)


Anyway, any ideas on how to speed up boot time?


Distributors website of ECM-1342 with manuals:
< http://www.tri-m.com/products/evalue/ecm1342.html >
Manufactures Website (manuals require registration):
< http://www.evalue-tech.com/products/ECM-1342.cfm >

Posted by roberts on Nov. 05 2006,22:54
Could be many things.
Some that come to mind...

starting ssh will generate keys.  On a slow machine that will take some time.

Are you connected to a network with dynamic IP. If not, the default is to request an IP from DHCP server. Use nodhcp to stop the request.

What's in your backup. If any mydsl extensions are, they would be better off being restored from a separate partition using the mydsl=xxxx option. This would include gnu-utils.dsl and dpkg.dsl, etc.

IMHO I would not start syslog on a flash device. Too many writes

nomonkey is not a valid option. Try without it.

Posted by josiahbryan on Nov. 06 2006,01:38
-Backup is just some custom directories under /opt which holds the thttpd server and cgi files (elf executables).
-SSH - any way to turn off keygen? How about alternatives to ssh (ECM-1342 runs headless most of the time) - does DSL have telnet built-in?
-ECM-1342 is being built into a consumer retail device, so end-user (admin) will have option of turning dhcp on or off - therefore I have to keep that available in boot.
-Is there an option to change syslog to write to the ramdisk that I can add to lilo.conf?
-Is there a way to turn off monkey from lilo? The software guys want to run thttpd instead.

I'll try all this tomorrow in the AM, but let me know your thoughts...

Thanks!

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Nov. 06 2006,04:10
-monkey doesn't start automatically by default
-think saving your ssh keys to your backup.tar.gz would be fine

Powered by Ikonboard 3.1.2a
Ikonboard © 2001 Jarvis Entertainment Group, Inc.