guix system boot time

guix system boot time

[christophe.pisteur]

Hello, I installed guix system 1.1.0 on real hardware (Lenovo T400 with 
libreboot, Intel P8600 @ 2.40GHz × 2) for a week.

The installation went very smoothly and all the hardware is correctly 
detected. Guix system is very responsive (Gnome 3.32) on this old 
computer, better than many of the distributions I tested on it before!

The only small problem is the system startup, which takes a long time (3 
minutes from grub to GDM user login). It is probably due to a problem 
with the system clock (I get somes warnings: ntpd clock unsynchronized). 
I don't know where the boot log is on guix system and I don't know if it 
has to do with GNU bug report logs - #22274.

Any Ideas?

Thank you

Christophe

As a side note:
In the installer, the keyboard regional settings CH_fr are listed under 
German (Swiss). It is not very intuitive and contrary to what I have 
encountered so far (usually CH_fr is listed under French (Swiss) and 
CH_de under German (swiss)). Should I report this issue?

Re: guix system boot time

[Leo Famulari]

Welcome and thanks for trying Guix!

On Sat, May 02, 2020 at 10:09:10PM +0200, christophe.pisteur@posteo.net wrote:
> The only small problem is the system startup, which takes a long time (3
> minutes from grub to GDM user login). It is probably due to a problem with
> the system clock (I get somes warnings: ntpd clock unsynchronized). I don't
> know where the boot log is on guix system and I don't know if it has to do
> with GNU bug report logs - #22274.

I have Guix on an X200 (basically the same as yours) and I can confirm,
it's slow.

I don't think it's related to ntpd. I see the same warnings but the
system displays the login prompt before they are resolved.

Generally, the issue is that the Shepherd is not optimized to the degree
that systemd is, and that these old Thinkpads (sold in 2008) are really
slow by contemporary standards.

One of the early selling points of systemd was that it reduced boot
times from being measured in minutes, which used to be typical, to
seconds. Now systemd is the standard, and minutes-long booting seems
incredibly and unreasonably slow.

Re: guix system boot time

[sirgazil]

 ---- On Sun, 03 May 2020 03:32:33 +0000 Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> wrote ----
 > Welcome and thanks for trying Guix!
 > 
 > On Sat, May 02, 2020 at 10:09:10PM +0200, christophe.pisteur@posteo.net wrote:
 > > The only small problem is the system startup, which takes a long time (3
 > > minutes from grub to GDM user login). It is probably due to a problem with
 > > the system clock (I get somes warnings: ntpd clock unsynchronized). I don't
 > > know where the boot log is on guix system and I don't know if it has to do
 > > with GNU bug report logs - #22274.
 > 
 > I have Guix on an X200 (basically the same as yours) and I can confirm,
 > it's slow.
 > 
 > I don't think it's related to ntpd. I see the same warnings but the
 > system displays the login prompt before they are resolved.
 > 
 > Generally, the issue is that the Shepherd is not optimized to the degree
 > that systemd is, and that these old Thinkpads (sold in 2008) are really
 > slow by contemporary standards.
 > 
 > One of the early selling points of systemd was that it reduced boot
 > times from being measured in minutes, which used to be typical, to
 > seconds. Now systemd is the standard, and minutes-long booting seems
 > incredibly and unreasonably slow.
 > 
 > 

Guix System: Very long, scary boot time: http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/39089

Re: guix system boot time

[christophe.pisteur]

Le 02.05.2020 23:06, sirgazil a écrit :
> ---- On Sun, 03 May 2020 03:32:33 +0000 Leo Famulari
> <leo@famulari.name> wrote ----
>  > Welcome and thanks for trying Guix!

:-) Guix is very exciting.

>  >
>  > On Sat, May 02, 2020 at 10:09:10PM +0200,
> christophe.pisteur@posteo.net wrote:
>  > > The only small problem is the system startup, which takes a long 
> time (3
>  > > minutes from grub to GDM user login). It is probably due to a 
> problem with
>  > > the system clock (I get somes warnings: ntpd clock 
> unsynchronized). I don't
>  > > know where the boot log is on guix system and I don't know if it 
> has to do
>  > > with GNU bug report logs - #22274.
>  >
>  > I have Guix on an X200 (basically the same as yours) and I can 
> confirm,
>  > it's slow.
>  >
>  > I don't think it's related to ntpd. I see the same warnings but the
>  > system displays the login prompt before they are resolved.
>  >
>  > Generally, the issue is that the Shepherd is not optimized to the 
> degree
>  > that systemd is, and that these old Thinkpads (sold in 2008) are 
> really
>  > slow by contemporary standards.
>  >
>  > One of the early selling points of systemd was that it reduced boot
>  > times from being measured in minutes, which used to be typical, to
>  > seconds. Now systemd is the standard, and minutes-long booting seems
>  > incredibly and unreasonably slow.
>  >
>  >
> 
> Guix System: Very long, scary boot time: 
> http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/39089

I understand. Anyway, boot time is not a problem for me: I just thought 
that something did not work in the installation of the system. Indeed, 
the start-up is confusing (the duration and also some lines are 
startling), but then, the system is really very fast: that's essential!

Thank you for your answers.

Christophe