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From: Mel <fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 21:52:37 +0100
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Cc: Daniel Feenberg <feenberg@nber.org>
Subject: Re: faster booting
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On Wednesday 05 March 2008 21:06:39 Daniel Feenberg wrote:

> About the only thing I can find is to reduce the 10 second boot screen
> delay - but we need to cut more than 30 seconds.
>
> The server is statically configured but the clients obtain network
> configuration from dhcp and pxeboot with nfs mounted root directories.
> Clients are FreeBSD and Linux, and we are not eager to give up pxeboot as
> it has greatly simplified maintainance.
>
> Any suggestions, pointers much appreciated.

Well, you could remove any hardware devices from the kernel, that you're sure 
you don't have nor going to get within the machine's lifetime. Nics and 
disk/raid controllers are good candidates.

However, this isn't really an exact science and you may not be able to cut the 
time you need. So you could of course make up for it, by *delaying* the 
dependant machines by 30-60 seconds. I'm sure that another 30-60 seconds on a 
multi-hour outage isn't gonna make a difference.

-- 
Mel

Problem with today's modular software: they start with the modules
    and never get to the software part.