Slow boot time for linux distros across the board. (3-5 minutes)

Nikom

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Hi guys and thanks for your time.
I'm using a Ryzen 5 2500u Apu with 12gb ram (extended) and an HDD. Im running it on dual boot and I know my boot time won't be incredible, but 3-5 minutes feels unacceptable, with windows booting within a minute.
Ever since the lockdown began I've been experimenting with distros, and I've found that in all the ones I've tested (newer distribution versions only, including ubuntu, pop os and manjaro), I'm having very slow boot time. (Although the experience is not the same when running a live usb boot)
I really like manjaro and would love to permanently move to it.
I've analysed the boot problems myself on using systemd. There are no failed service (I could post here if anyone wants to see), bar
"failed to start load/save screen backlight brightness of acpi_video1" (yes video1 not video0 as I've seen online).
In some distribution such as ubuntu, I've disabled and masked service that took a very long time (using critical-chain), but this only resulted in other process taking as much time.
Based on the above facts, I suspect that the issue is either due to gpu drivers or due to the extension of ram (I don't know very much about any of this so I could be completely wrong).
Can someone please give me an idea of what I might need to do (if at all anything)?
Ps- in Manjaro the boot after mounting is faster than the others, however to go from grubs to mounting takes time, so the things sort of cancle out. And I've also tried free and nonfree drivers, and the system doesn't boot at all on non free drivers.
 


There is a way to make Ubuntu boot faster.

1. First become root with sudo and make a back up of your /etc/systemd/system.conf.
Name it /etc/systemd/system.conf.bak.

2. Than edit the /etc/systemd/system.conf with your favorite text editor with elevated privileges.

3. Move with your arrow keys down to where it says:
#DefaultTimeoutStartSec=90s

4. Un-comment the string and change =90 to 10 seconds like so:
DefaultTimeoutStartSec=10s

5. Reboot.

When I say un-comment I mean remove the # sign.

This worked for me on Elementary OS which is based on Ubuntu.
 
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That didn't really fix anything, on the contrary It gave a bunch of failures. I suspect that what this does is puts a timeout on each service(?). I want to increase the timeout, but I figure that it would not fix the underlying problem.
 
That didn't really fix anything, on the contrary It gave a bunch of failures. I suspect that what this does is puts a timeout on each service(?). I want to increase the timeout, but I figure that it would not fix the underlying problem.
Sorry I thought it would help.
It worked for me:-

Is this problem happening on a custom built desktop?

It's looking to me like a driver issue too.
What GPU do you have?
 
Running the command systemd-analyze blame should show you a list of things that are taking the most time during the boot process.

I know you have already disabled things at start up but thought these links would help.

 
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Sorry I thought it would help.
It worked for me:-

Is this problem happening on a custom built desktop?

It's looking to me like a driver issue too.
What GPU do you have?

It's integrated gpu, ryzen 5 2500u with vega 8 graphics.
Update: The last time I updated bios, I did so with a 'windows optimised' version (apparently, this was the default file). So i updated it again, and the boot up time has reduced to about 2 minutes 15 sec.
 
It's integrated gpu, ryzen 5 2500u with vega 8 graphics.
Update: The last time I updated bios, I did so with a 'windows optimised' version (apparently, this was the default file). So i updated it again, and the boot up time has reduced to about 2 minutes 15 sec.
Glad to hear that the boot up time is a little better.

I found good information about the vega 8 graphics.

I just built a brand new rig with a ryzen 5 and I've never had any trouble with Linux and AMD.

What laptop do you have? Sony? HP? Lenovo? or other?
 
Glad to hear that the boot up time is a little better.

I found good information about the vega 8 graphics.

I just built a brand new rig with a ryzen 5 and I've never had any trouble with Linux and AMD.

What laptop do you have? Sony? HP? Lenovo? or other?
Asus, and it's an apu, so that might be the problem. I've heard that that manjaro has(or had) issues with ryzen apu. The driver thing is also a bit weird, because as I understand it amd drivers are open source.
 
Asus, and it's an apu, so that might be the problem. I've heard that that manjaro has(or had) issues with ryzen apu. The driver thing is also a bit weird, because as I understand it amd drivers are open source.
I've installed amd drivers before on my linux boxes and they were buggy.
Yup the apu works as a single die so I think your right; that could be the problem all together:-

If you have any more issues you could dmesg the driver and see what the output kicks out.
dmesg <name of driver>

I read a lot of reviews before I purchased my Sony laptop.
Good news is I've been able to run a lot of different distro's on it over the last 10 years w/o any compatibility issues.

How's Ubuntu running once it boots?
 
I've installed amd drivers before on my linux boxes and they were buggy.
Yup the apu works as a single die so I think your right; that could be the problem all together:-

If you have any more issues you could dmesg the driver and see what the output kicks out.
dmesg <name of driver>

I read a lot of reviews before I purchased my Sony laptop.
Good news is I've been able to run a lot of different distro's on it over the last 10 years w/o any compatibility issues.

How's Ubuntu running once it boots?
The distros run smoothly, but the startup is slow.
 
The distros run smoothly, but the startup is slow.
Have a look at the 'noresume' parameter. There are other things in the link that might help too.


During boot up are you getting a message that says something like:
A start job is running for <some uuid #> and last's for 1 min. and 30 seconds?
 
Also, looking through the output of dmesg may reveal some errors or warnings to help you further diagnose the slow boot issue.

One more question while I'm thinking of it.
Does the output of blkid and your /etc/fstab file match?
 
Okay, thank you very much. For now I can't risk changing anything as I have important work. But I will do it as soon as I'm done with the work.
 
Also another update: I've fixed the failed to start ....acpi_video1...
Also, reverting to bios of 2 years ago has further improved boot time to < 2 minutes.
 
Okay, the errors in the dmesg output are the following;
#Unable to read/write to IOMMU perf counter# (which I beleive is benign)
And the very next message is;
# Can't derive routing for PCI INT A, PCI INT A: not connected.

Some more are:
#acpi region does not cover the entire command/response buffer
#Watchdog hardware is disabled.

As for the blkid and the fstab files, they match.

Going through the article for slow boot fix now.

Ps- should I run an older Linux version of debain and check? Older Ubuntu maybe?
 
Okay, the errors in the dmesg output are the following;
#Unable to read/write to IOMMU perf counter# (which I beleive is benign)
And the very next message is;
# Can't derive routing for PCI INT A, PCI INT A: not connected.

Some more are:
#acpi region does not cover the entire command/response buffer
#Watchdog hardware is disabled.

As for the blkid and the fstab files, they match.

Going through the article for slow boot fix now.

Ps- should I run an older Linux version of debain and check? Older Ubuntu maybe?
I'm not sure if running an older version of those distro's would help.

Running these commands will show you what is taking so long.
systemd-analyze blame
systemd-analyze critical-chain
 
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I started a thread asking the guys here to help me with slow booting issues.
I think if you follow along and run the commands that I'm running you'll get a good idea of what is going on and ideas how to fix it.

 
In that thread Jaskinasis and our Moderator Wizard are helping me to understand what to do to help fix the the system to stop taking so long to boot.
I'm still working on it.
 
My Linux Mint has been taking a long time to boot lately too.
Now I have the same booting problem that you do so I know how you feel.
 

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