Slow boot...again.

[maximus linuxos]

Hi,
Suddenly experiencing a slower boot time.

This is my quick info.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-15-amd64 [6.1.66-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-6.1.0-15-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.36 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm v: 4.18.0 vt: 7
    dm: LightDM v: 1.26.0 Distro: MX-23.1_x64 Libretto July 31  2023 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12
    (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude E7270 v: N/A serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
    type: 9 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0K4CNR v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI-[Legacy]: Dell v: 1.16.4
    date: 06/02/2017
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 49.2 Wh (100.0%) condition: 49.2/55.0 Wh (89.4%) volts: 8.2 min: 7.6
    model: Samsung SDI DELL 1W2Y25C type: Li-poly serial: <filter> status: full
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i5-6300U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake gen: core 6 level: v3
    note: check built: 2015 process: Intel 14nm family: 6 model-id: 0x4E (78) stepping: 3
    microcode: 0xF0
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache: L1: 128 KiB
    desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 2x256 KiB L3: 3 MiB desc: 1x3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 560 high: 655 min/max: 400/3000 scaling: driver: intel_pstate
    governor: powersave cores: 1: 655 2: 500 3: 500 4: 588 bogomips: 19999
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Vulnerable: No microcode
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: mmio_stale_data mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: retbleed mitigation: IBRS
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: IBRS, IBPB: conditional, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling,
    PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort mitigation: TSX disabled
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9
    process: Intel 14n built: 2015-16 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:1916 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm v: 4.18.0 driver: X:
    loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.21x7.99") s-diag: 414mm (16.31")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: AU Optronics 0x106c built: 2013 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 125
    gamma: 1.2 size: 277x156mm (10.91x6.14") diag: 318mm (12.5") ratio: 16:9 modes: 1366x768
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_skl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d70 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-15-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.65 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-LM vendor: Dell driver: e1000e v: kernel port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6
    chip-ID: 8086:156f class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:24f3 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-8:4
    chip-ID: 8087:0a2b class-ID: e001
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 3 state: down bt-service: N/A rfk-block: hardware: no
    software: no address: <filter>
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:4 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: peripheral accept
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 223.57 GiB used: 48.07 GiB (21.5%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: SanDisk model: HX240GSSDM2 size: 223.57 GiB block-size:
    physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 5A0 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 17.13 GiB size: 16.32 GiB (95.25%) used: 11.91 GiB (73.0%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2
  ID-2: /boot raw-size: 3.13 GiB size: 3.12 GiB (99.80%) used: 363 MiB (11.3%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
  ID-3: /home raw-size: 50.88 GiB size: 49.78 GiB (97.84%) used: 35.81 GiB (71.9%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 3 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0 C pch: 36.5 C mobo: 35.0 C sodimm: SODIMM C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2074 libs: 1043 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb http://mxlinux.mirrors.uk2.net/packages/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
Info:
  Processes: 206 Uptime: 1h 41m wakeups: 2 Memory: 7.58 GiB used: 1.98 GiB (26.1%) Init: SysVinit
  v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
  Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

Is it advisable to turn off fschk within service manager.?
this is my 3rd reinstall and mx runs great until a certain time and then runs slower.

thanks.

[j2mcgreg]

@maximus linuxos
The only anomaly I can see is that you have done an MBR install on what is almost certainly a UEFI system. When Win 8 and 8.1 hit the market, the OEMs changed "Legacy" to mean that an end user could roll back to Win 7 if desired. They did this by adding an MBR emulator to the UEFI Set up Utility. For all other intents and purposes, this meant that from 2013 onwards the Linux community could no longer do an MBR install and expect it to behave properly, Many (including myself) have tried to do an MBR install on a late model computer and while at first everything seems fine, over time you get unexplained glitches and instability. Sound familiar?

I think that you need to reinstall using UEFI and for best results you should configure your USB drive to use GPT partitioning.

[maximus linuxos]

Thank you for your response.I am assuming my partition table will need changing to GPT as it is an msdos partition table at the moment.This laptop came with windows 10 preinstalled on a GPT partition table..i changed the table to msdos and installed mx using MBR....research on the web seemed to indicate this was ok...

[j2mcgreg]

Thank you for your response.I am assuming my partition table will need changing to GPT as it is an msdos partition table at the moment.

Yes, and the easiest way to accomplish that is to use the 'install using entire disk' option in MX Installer. This will do it all for you and start to finish takes about 15 minutes to complete. But, back up your data first.

[maximus linuxos]

Thanks,
Do i need to change the BIOS values to gpt also.?

[j2mcgreg]

Thanks,
Do i need to change the BIOS values to gpt also.?

Yes.

[asqwerth]

Out of curiosity, what are you considering as "slow"? Because I don't have any complaints about a 20 to 30+s bootup time on my 2015 MBR-boot machine.

Also, as I understand it, there is a systemd command called systemd-analyze that may help analyze the boot process and how much time each step is taking.
Is there a sysvinit command to do the same thing?

Or maybe, just as a test, you can boot with systemd and then run that command in your terminal to see what that command shows.

Seems to me a more measured response than immediately jumping into a reformat of partition tables and reinstall.

[maximus linuxos]

Out of curiosity, what are you considering as "slow"? Because I don't have any complaints about a 20 to 30+s bootup time on my 2015 MBR-boot machine.

Also, as I understand it, there is a systemd command called systemd-analyze that may help analyze the boot process and how much time each step is taking.
Is there a sysvinit command to do the same thing?

Or maybe, just as a test, you can boot with systemd and then run that command in your terminal to see what that command shows.

Seems to me a more measured response than immediately jumping into a reformat of partition tables and reinstall.

Hello asqwerth.,
I am going purely by comparison to the speed mx booted up immediately at a reinstall..Usually it is lightning fast and gets to a working desktop within 20 secs..I have noticed for example the boot process gets stuck at the mx logo or at the initialising disk stage..these are very much noticeable slow downs..i have not touched any settings except for stopping the fschk at boot up via the service manager...From what i understand mx needs to be booted 30 times before the fschk script starts to run...ever since post 30th boot the boot up process is getting hung at even the logo or it goes to a black screen forcing a power button shutdown...i have my reservations about reinstalling and reformatting to a uefi system unless it is confirmed this is indeed the cause.

thanks.

[maximus linuxos]

Just to add.
2 pics of my enabled services at boot.

Screenshot_2023-12-11_14-08-01.png

Screenshot_2023-12-11_14-08-39.png

[j2mcgreg]

@maximus linuxos

Keep in mind that your laptop is a Dell product. Dell has always been in lockstep with Microsoft and the ability to roll back to Win 7 was at Microsoft's behest.