From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 30 02:23:29 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 98CD216A41C for ; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:23:29 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bryan.maynard@reallm.com) Received: from hosting.sourcit.net (mail3.eitsolutions.net [68.23.20.100]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3C31943D55 for ; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:23:28 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bryan.maynard@reallm.com) Received: (qmail 28557 invoked from network); 29 Jun 2005 21:16:47 -0500 Received: from al1-24.207.169.154.charter-stl.com (HELO ?192.168.1.102?) (24.207.169.154) by sourcit.net with SMTP; 29 Jun 2005 21:16:46 -0500 From: Bryan Maynard Organization: Sofos Nikitis To: Questions Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 21:15:59 +0000 User-Agent: KMail/1.8 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200506292116.00205.bryan.maynard@reallm.com> Subject: Kernel question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:23:29 -0000 Hey helpful friends! :-D I would like to conduct an experiment: down the road (a couple years maybe) I'd like to start building and selling PCs. I'd like these PCs to run FreeBSD - because it's the best ;-). These machines will be a slightly different from the current crop in that they will be laptops that will not have PCMCIA slots or CD/DVD drives (these items will be held in a separate "breakout box"). The machines wil lbe completely sealed with the exception of the various memory card (SD, CompactFlash, Memory stick, etc.) embeded in the monitor casing. There's much more to these machines, but I'll save those details for the appropriate place - my question for here is this: I'd like to minimize boot time as much as possible. Since these machines will not ever have hardware added or changed I would like to statically build as much device information as early in the boot process as possible. I understand that FreeBSD has a three stage boot process. I'm a bit fuzzy as to what happens when, but was wondering how, or if, I could cut out any of these stages - and shorten the remaining stages as much as possible. I've looked around loader.conf, device.hints, .hints, and such and this is what got me wondering. If you all need anymore info please let me know. Thanks a lot! Bryan -- Open Source: by the people, for the people.