Ubuntu

In 7.10, slow boot time from boot menu to log on screen

Asked by Chris Dahl

I'm new to Linux, so I apologize in advance if this is a dumb question. A couple of weeks ago I loaded 6.10 from a live CD with no issues/problems. This past weekend I was offered an upgrade to 7.10 on boot up. The upgrade completed successfully and I am able to use 7.10.

I have noticed two differences since the upgrade to 7.10. First, that the elapsed time from the boot menu to the log on screen is about 3.5 to 4 minutes now, much longer than with 6.10. Also, once the boot up process does begin, my screen is blank until the log on screen appears. In the past, I'd see the Ubuntu logo and could see the boot up commands being executed in a scrolling fashion on the lower half of the screen.

Are these two differences normal?

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Guillaume Tremblay Beaumont
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Guillaume Tremblay Beaumont (guizzy) said : 		#1

It really shouldn't be that long. This might happen because there's an error happening that you can't see because of the splash screen.

Try rebooting, during the GRUB timeout, press ESC. Select your kernel (usually the one with the highest number that is not safe mode), press "e" (for edit). On the screen this opens, press "e" again, and remove the "splash" part of the line (don't worry, this is not permanent until it's changed in the GRUB config, so you can do this safely). Press Enter, then b (for boot).

Now upon booting you will see the whole boot sequence. There's probably a step at which the computer stops for a significant amount of time.

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Chris Dahl (cjdahl60) said : 		#2

Thank you for your quick response.

Interestingly, when I removed the word "splash" from the end of the line as you detailed in your earlier post, not only was I able to watch the processes load, but the boot up time to the log in screen was reduced to less than 30 seconds. I didn't notice any failure messages in the boot up process, but they did scroll by pretty quickly.

I'm going to try to reboot a couple of more times using this method to see if I get the same results (and keep a sharp eye out for any failure messages that I may have missed the first time). Assuming I see the same results, can you point me to any online documentation to show me how to edit the GRUB config file permanently?

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Best Guillaume Tremblay Beaumont (guizzy) said : 		#3

Sure, in the terminal you can type "sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst"

This should open the GRUB config file, from there, what you will want to edit is usually near the end. You'll have a bunch of entries with "Title Ubuntu, kernel" and kernel numbers, you need to find the one you're booting from, then under it in the "kernel" part of the entry, you'll find the "splash" option. You can just delete it and save. On next reboot, it should be permanent.

One drawback of editing options in the GRUB config files though is that you'll need to do it each time a new kernel is installed through update-manager (as it will create a new entry in GRUB with the default options). It's a minor hassle, but at least kernel updates are not really that frequent.

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Chris Dahl (cjdahl60) said : 		#4

Thanks again for your quick response and help.