Ubuntu

slow startup with xubuntu 8.04

Asked by Alex

Hi, I just converted an old laptop of mine to run linux. The laptop is an Averatec 1020-ED1 [http://www.averatec.com/products/portable/featherlight/1000Series.asp], and the operating system is Xubuntu 8.04. Whenever I start it up, it takes a very long time (maybe 6-7 min) to get going. With the splash screen on, it the bar seems to just hang on the left side for most of that time. I tried to turn the splash screen off (erase the "quiet splash" in grub, then boot) to look at what was happening. When it goes through the commands, and gets to:
     Begin: Loading essential drivers...
     ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C2[C2] C3[C3])
     ACPI: Processor [CPU1] (supports 8 throttling states)
it seems to hang on the CPU1 line for most of those 6-7 minutes, then just continues on normally.
I haven't done anything to the computer since I installed Xubuntu, except change the time and look through the documentation, so it's a completely fresh installation, and I haven't experienced any other problems with it.
The processor is the original that came with the laptop, an Intel Pentium M ULV 733. Could this be a driver issue?
I'd greatly appreciate any help you guys could give me!

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Revision history for this message
Alex (alexbachmanov) said : 		#1

Correction: the processor is an Intel Celeron M ULV 373. My mistake.

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Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#2

Hello alex:

Try to add clocksource=hpet option and try during boot

A bit more info on the above: Give the following command in a terminal (applications -> accessories -> terminal)

 gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Then add "clocksource=hpet" to the end of the # defoptions line:

    # defoptions=ro quiet splash clocksource=hpet

Your defoptions line may differ a little, just add the recommended text to the end of the line, save the file, then close the editor.

Afterwards, in a terminal, run:

    $ sudo update-grub

This will update grub to use the new option. Afterwards, reboot, and then run the system again and review for speed..

Hope it helps

Bhavani Shankar.

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Alex (alexbachmanov) said : 		#3

Okay, I edited the defoptions line, and tried booting it up a few more times, with and without splash, but it still gave me the same problem. Normal dialog, long hangup at the CPU1 line, normal dialog again. Thank you for the advice, though, Bhavani!

I thought I caught a line about an unstable clocksource somewhere in there, though. After a brief search on the interweb, It seems that this is not an uncommon problem. Apparently there's something or other wrong with the kernel that causes this, among other problems. I'm using kernel 2.6.24, some people have had an unstable clocksource error on 2.6.23, on all sorts of distributions. (I understand what the clocksource=hpet option means now, btw, thanks!)
So I tried using "clocksource=acpi_pm" instead of "clocksource=hpet", since it seems to revert to that anyway after trying to do whatever it was supposed to be doing, and it seemed to work just fine. Suspiciously so, even. Hopefully this won't cause any problems down the line. Thanks again to everyone for your help, I hope this might have helped anyone who's having similar problems.