Re: Why does setting a language in Grub take 1.5 minutes?

[raingloom <raingloom@riseup.net>]

On Sun, 15 May 2022 18:06:41 -0500
Katherine Cox-Buday <cox.katherine.e@gmail.com> wrote:

> At some point, after a long time with no problems, my system began
> taking an unreasonably long time to boot. I only reboot my system
> ~1/week for updates, so I never took the time to debug the problem,
> and therefore, I couldn't really connect the issue with any changes
> that either I or Guix had made.
> 
> I'm now trying to debug a wake from hibernate issue, and this
> involves a lot of rebooting, so I had to figure this out. I have, and
> I'm unsure why what I found is causing issues, and whether it's a
> Guix bug, or something wrong with my setup.
> 
> Here's my partition layout:
> 
> #+begin_example
>   $ lsblk
>   NAME          MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
>   nvme0n1       259:2    0 931.5G  0 disk
>   ├─nvme0n1p1   259:3    0   549M  0 part  /boot/efi
>   └─nvme0n1p2   259:4    0   931G  0 part
>     └─cryptroot 253:0    0   931G  0 crypt /var/lib/docker
>                                            /gnu/store
>                                            /
> #+end_example
> 
> There are no filesystem errors.
> 
> Here's the bootloader portion of my operating-system:
> 
> #+begin_example
>   (bootloader
>    (bootloader-configuration
>     (bootloader grub-efi-bootloader)
>     (targets (list "/boot/efi"))
>     (keyboard-layout keyboard-layout)))
> #+end_example
> 
> Here's part of my /boot/grub/grub.cfg, generated by Guix. I've added
> some echo statements to help debug.
> 
> #+begin_example
>   echo "C"
> 
>   # Set 'root' to the partition that contains /gnu/store.
>   search --file --set
> /gnu/store/9lcbyg3pkb38chhv0yzk6hn3arxfjfgk-grub-image.png echo "D"
> 
> 
>   if loadfont unicode; then
>     set gfxmode=auto
>     insmod all_video
>     echo "E"
>     insmod gfxterm
>     echo "F"
>   fi
> 
>   terminal_output gfxterm
>   echo "G"
> 
>   insmod png
>   echo "H"
>   if background_image
> /gnu/store/9lcbyg3pkb38chhv0yzk6hn3arxfjfgk-grub-image.png; then echo
> "H.1" set color_normal=light-gray/black
>     echo "H.2"
>     set color_highlight=yellow/black
>     echo "H.3"
>   else
>     set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
>     set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
>   fi
>   echo "I"
>   Localization configuration.
>   search --file --set
> /gnu/store/mdrdpd6aw9ikx1wzx6ljydpzvnvwpq0y-grub-locales/en@quot.mo
> echo "J" set
> locale_dir=/gnu/store/mdrdpd6aw9ikx1wzx6ljydpzvnvwpq0y-grub-locales
> echo "K" set lang=en_US
>   echo "L"
>   insmod keylayouts
>   echo "M"
>   keymap /gnu/store/pgg50qzm7d2q6k0f82c43fmsxwpwrjvx-grub-keymap.us
>   echo "N"
> #+end_example
> 
> And here are the time elapsed between steps (at least the ones that
> didn't go by too quickly), in seconds:
> 
> C -> D : 13
> H -> I : 13
> I -> K : 27
> K -> M : 157 (!!!!)
> M -> N : 20
> 
> That's almost 4 minutes from unlocking the luks volume to get to the
> Grub menu, and then another 4 minutes to boot into the Kernel.
> 
> I then removed the keyboard configuration and changed the theme so
> that it wouldn't load an image:
> 
> #+begin_example
>   (bootloader
>    (bootloader-configuration
>     (bootloader grub-efi-bootloader)
>     (targets (list "/boot/efi"))
>     (theme (grub-theme
>             (inherit (grub-theme))
>             (image #f)))))
> #+end_example
> 
> It produces a grub.cfg with this in it (again, echoes added):
> 
> #+begin_example
>   echo "A"
>   set
> locale_dir=/gnu/store/mdrdpd6aw9ikx1wzx6ljydpzvnvwpq0y-grub-locales
> echo "B" set lang=en_US
>   echo "C"
> #+end_example
> 
> Between B -> C, it still takes 157 seconds.
> 
> Does anyone know why this is taking so long or how to fix it? As it
> is, I'll have to manually edit my grub.cfg after every system
> reconfigure.
> 
> Thank you,

A guess: since LUKS seems to be involved, mayyybe it's an entropy
issue? There was a time when booting took a while on my Thinkpad
because the ssh key generations was not set up correctly or something.
A quick way to check would be to hit random keys, if it makes booting
much faster, it's probably an entropy issue.