F8/9 6-16x slower than XP to boot

[Dimi Paun]

Folks,

I have reported in the past slow boot times. I have performed
some more tests that may help people improve the situation.

  Hardware: 2x2.13 GHz Intel Core Duo 6400, 4GB RAM
  Software: Fedora 8, running Innotek's Virtual Box
  Virtual Hardware: 538MB RAM, 8GB HDD
  OS in Virtual Box: Fedora 9 Beta and XP 

Test was to boot the box and start Firefox to the point where I can
interact with it (i.e. type in location bar).

Summary:
  * F8 on real hardware, without BIOS time:   2:15
  * F9 on virtual hardware:                   7:00
  * XP on virtual hardware:                   0:22

For F8 boot, here is a breakdown of times:
  0:00 -- Grub starts
  1:25 -- login prompt
  1:50 -- I can click on the Firefox icon
  2:15 -- Firefox becomes usable

For F9 Beta boot, being so slow, I could record more details:
  0:00 -- start of virtual box
  0:45 -- "Welcome to Fedora" shows
  1:30 -- udev finishes (took 45'!)
  1:40 -- first graphics show (rhgb)
  3:20 -- X restarts (I guess rhgb ends)
  4:00 -- login prompt
  6:15 -- Firefox icon is clickable
  7:00 -- Firefox becomes usable

A few notes:
  * I took out all times for user interaction
  * I repeated the tests a few times, the results are stable
  * For whatever reason, Fedora 9 Beta feels very sluggish in the
    virtual machine (even the mouse stutters), whereas XP runs
    extremely well. Maybe Innotek did some Windows-only optimizations?
  * I measured to the point where I could interact with Firefox.
    However, at that point XP appeared more responsive than Fedora,
    even when compared to the Fedora that was running on the real
    hardware, with a lot more RAM available.
  * Even when comparing Fedora on real hardware vs XP on VM,
    it took longer to just start Firefox in Linux vs. the entire
    boot + starting of Firefox in Windows!

I'd be glad to provide more information if people are interested.

-- 
Dimi Paun <dimi at lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.