Gutsy Gibon takes forever to boot up

Maybe it is problem in your computer, maybe it is very slow?

Maybe it is problem in your computer, maybe it is very slow?

It is now I installed Ubuntu LOL No with XP it's fast and boots quickly. Thanks Leron but I think the solution needs to come from someone with a bit more experience :)

If you remove the "quiet" and "splash" parameters sent to the kernel by GRUB, you will be able to follow the boot process and see why/where it takes so long.

To do so, you have to press the escape key while you got the GRUB prompt (you got 3 seconds to do so). Then you need to edit the boot parameters to delete those two options.

Tell me if you need more detailed instructions.

Without knowing 'why', it's difficult how to say speed it up, so first let's try to get a bit more information out of the machine.

When you turn it on, I want you to stop the "Will boot linux in 5, 4, 3" screen.

Highlight the line which gets you into linux, and press the e key (to edit)

Next highlight the line that has 'kernel' on it (mine is this):
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=f795e1c7-6754-4d5a-accf-0e474a164b94 ro quiet splash
and press e again. Now you should be editing the line there

Remove the 'quiet' and 'splash' off the end, then press enter to exit the edit mode, then press b to boot.

This will disable (for this time) the pretty splash screen, and it will also dump a whole bunch of messages to your screen. What I'm hoping is happening is something like

Starting service X ....(5 minute pause) [FAILED] or [OK]

then we know what's taking 5 minutes.

Let me know if this helps you

"Remove the 'quiet' and 'splash' off the end, then press enter to exit the edit mode, then press b to boot." I did that and it did not seem to take long at all. Then when I rebooted I could no longer see what was happening. Had a black screen which again seemed to take forever to boot??

Well honestly I have no idea why it would take less time when you have removed the 'quiet' and 'splash' -- those simply make the boot prettier. Perhaps someone else watching the question might be able to shed some light on that.

In the meantime, you can use this workaround, to remove the 'quiet splash' permanently:
From within Ubuntu, start up a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), and type the following
uname -r
and note the numbers here -- you will need them in a second
(mine is 2.6.20-16-generic)
Next, type:
sudo pico /boot/grub/menu.lst

This is what controls that boot screen.

Scroll down to the bottom, and you should see that number from above (2.6.20-16-generic) in an area something like this:
  title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=f795e1c7-6754-4d5a-accf-0e474a164b94 ro quiet splash
  initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic

Remove the quiet and splash from the end of the line that begins with kernel. There may be a few of these sections, but you need only worry about the one with "2.6.20-16-generic".

To save, type ctrl+o then to exit type ctrl+x

Now when you boot into Ubuntu, it will automatically not have quiet and splash on the end of the line.

Hope this helps
-Allen

This line seems to hint at a possible problem...

"Then when I rebooted I could no longer see what was happening. Had a black screen which again seemed to take forever to boot."

What do you mean a "black" screen. During a "quite" boot you should see the ubuntu logo and a progress bar. If the screen is black, it may be looking for or waiting for something to load related to the logo and progress bar, doesn't find it and then times out and continues anyway. Of course if you do see the ubuntu logo and such then disregard.

Hi Jim. By "Black Screen" I mean the laptop could be mistaken for being turned off. There is no Ubuntu Icon. Nothing. It is so slow I turned on my PC, went to the brush my teeth, came back and had not started! When I remove "quiet" and "splash" it starts very quickly.

Weel doesn't worry me viewing all the text so I will close this off now as it starts faster

gazmania, I have noticed that some laptops have a tendency to default to the external monitor. I see this at work a lot. When that happens the screen is basically off. I have no idea if this could be related to your issue but is there any chance the hardware is, for whatever reason, defaulting to an external video source? Even if it is, it's hard to imagine why that would slow down the boot process but perhaps something is timing out first before continuing (like looking for a video device that is not connected and then giving up).

It's also possible that there is a problem with the video driver. I have seen this on a thin-client setup. In my case, the computers booted but no video was displayed until the entire boot process finished and even then it took several minutes for the log in screen to show up. Again, I think it is timing out but I'm not sure what it's looking for. Next time you boot, let it do it normally and watch the drive activity. See if I/O stops after a short bit and waits until finally displaying the log in. Perhaps you issue is similar.

I'm not sure what I/O is and I have a feeling this is a difficult issue to correct because whenever I get rid of splash and quiet to see what happening the problem no longer occurs. Hmmmm.

I/O means input/output. I'm just using it to refer to disk access. If the light indicating drive activity goes off for a while it suggests the system is waiting for something. It may not be a very telling test but would give some indication of the problem - or at least how it is manifesting itself. If you have a workaround you are happy with then that is fine. I just have a suspicion that there is a cause and probably a solution (not that I will necessarily know what it is).

I am having this same exact problem. Grub loads, then the screen goes blank. After about 5 minutes of waiting, the login screen appears. If I remove the quite and splash, the system boots very fast, actually about 40 seconds. I would really like a workaround to this. Any suggestions let me know.

Solved. http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Gutsy#Fix_Slow_boot.2Ffaulty_splash_screen