Leave it on or turn it off (Was: Is Linux really faster)

[Erik Hemdal]

>
>
>>> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>> > I'm not saying that Fedora in paticular or linux in general HAS to
>>>> > start faster. I personally dont even care. I'm just saying that if we
>>>> > want to make it more accessable then it has to start faster. Or at
>>>> > least appear to. Even if it is doing something in the backgorund that
>>>> > does not interest the end user.
>>>      
>>>

Let me put in a vote for things as they are, and a vote against fretting 
about user perceptions of startup time.  When the system boots, it tells 
you what it is doing.  The user can see what is happening and can 
understand what's running on the system.  It's easy to be patient when 
the system announces what it is doing.  When booting is done, the system 
is ready for operation, and not until then.  No one likes a long boot, 
but on Linux, you know why it happens and you see progress.

On any number of Windows systems that I have had to use, the GUI appears 
"quickly".  But it's false speed, because the system is not ready for 
operations when Windows will accept logins.  You can open the Web 
browser, or start your email client, but doing so will only result in 
errors when you try to do real work.  The machine will not be ready for 
work for 2-3 minutes after it allows you to login, because 
networking/anti-virus code/firewalls etc aren't yet running.  This 
eliminates the benefit of an artificially fast "startup time".

Erik