Note: A quick summary is at the bottom.
This is a clean install of 20.04.1 with no 3rd party packages on an old x58 (SATA II) system with an archaic hybrid EFI/legacy BIOS. I initially created 1 OS 25GB partition and 1 Home partition with flags. Reinstalling with default partitions results in no change. No USB devices are attached aside from the keyboard and mouse. 18.04.4 was previously installed with a <10 second boot.
It takes 50 to 1:10:95 seconds as measured with a phone from the end of BIOS, to a purple GRUB screen, then the login screen. The bulk of the time (at least 50 seconds) is spent on the purple GRUB screen. An old Mushkin Chronos 120GB SSD using the same SATA cables with a clean 20.04.1 install boots in 8 seconds. SMART short, long, and fsck scans on the Samsung 850 250GB SSD via a LiveUSB show no errors. I've long formatted the Samsung with EXT4 several times and updated the firmware. Benchmarks show 284.2 and 285.4 MB/s average read rate in 2 tests for the Samsung, which seems fine for SATA II.
$ inxi -Fxz
System:
Kernel: 5.4.0-54-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0
Desktop: Gnome 3.36.3 Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Machine:
Type: Desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: EX58-UD3R BIOS: Award
v: Fk2 date: 09/27/2011
CPU:
Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Xeon X5675 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Nehalem rev: 2 L2 cache: 12.0 MiB
flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 73548
Speed: 1877 MHz min/max: 1596/3060 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1599 2: 1617
3: 1636 4: 1690 5: 1635 6: 1635 7: 1604 8: 1633 9: 1659 10: 1621 11: 1691
12: 1692
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GK208B [GeForce GT 710] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nouveau
v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0
Device-2: NVIDIA GP106 [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] vendor: eVga.com.
driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 02:00.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: nouveau
resolution: 1680x1050~60Hz, 1680x1050~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NV106 v: 4.3 Mesa 20.0.8 direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 82801JI HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0
Device-2: NVIDIA GK208 HDMI/DP Audio vendor: eVga.com.
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1
Device-3: NVIDIA GP106 High Definition Audio vendor: eVga.com.
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 02:00.1
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-54-generic
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169 v: kernel port: ce00 bus ID: 05:00.0
IF: enp5s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 232.89 GiB used: 7.50 GiB (3.2%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 250GB size: 232.89 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 227.74 GiB used: 7.50 GiB (3.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 21.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
GPU: device: nouveau temp: 37 C fan: 0 device: nouveau temp: 32 C
Info:
Processes: 303 Uptime: 2m Memory: 15.63 GiB used: 931.5 MiB (5.8%)
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: N/A Shell: bash v: 5.0.17
inxi: 3.0.38
Other things I've tried:
systemd-analyze blame showed 12.332s apt-daily.service as the worst offender, so I added the below to /etc/systemd/system/apt-daily.timer
# apt-daily timer configuration override
[Timer]
OnBootSec=5min
OnUnitActiveSec=1d
AccuracySec=1h
RandomizedDelaySec=7min
After this, systemd-analyze blame showed 4.912s NetworkManager-wait-online.service and 4.604s plymouth-quit-wait.service
Next steps: sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager-wait-online.service, removed splash from /etc/default/grub, and updated GRUB: sudo update-grub
Removing splash was significant, but nothing resulted in faster booting. Continuing on, I found that Quick Boot wasn't enabled in BIOS, so that was enabled. fsck appeared to be running before the login screen on each boot. I then added fsck.mode=skip to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=
Used other 5.4 or 5.8 kernels, added nomodeset or noresume to GRUB, and changed the SATA port from 1 to 0 then reinstalled. Installing Linux Mint 20 has the same problem with a 1:08:58 second boot.
Updated microcode.
Commenting out quiet splash via GRUB results in the usual loading messages after the same purple screen delay.
Removed plymouth. Used noplymouth GRUB option after another 20.04.1 reinstall.
Pressing ESC on the purple GRUB screen does nothing unless quiet splash is removed. Booting then hangs until loading messages appear.
A clean 18.04.4 reinstall after all of this again gives a <10 second boot.
Added noatime option to mounts in /etc/fstab
Verified that UUIDs match by comparing blkid to /etc/fstab
Uncommented and changed DefaultTimeoutStartSec=90s to 10s in /etc/systemd/system.conf
Checked /var/log/boot.log
Put the Samsung 850 into another system with legacy mode BIOS enabled (also has a UEFI option). I did not reinstall 20.04.1 on the SSD when in the new system, I simply plugged it into the new system. It booted in 8 seconds.
Installed 20.04.1 on other SSDs including a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB, an Intel 330 240GB, and again on a Mushkin Chronos 120GB. All have current firmware. All but the Mushkin booted in over 40 seconds.
Verified that the Mushkin has TRIM functionality with journalctl -u fstrim.
The Samsung 850 and 840 infamously suffer from a queued TRIM bug. Both have updated firmware, but dmesg shows that queued TRIM is still disabled for these SSDs. I can't explain why only the Mushkin avoids the purple screen hanging problem.
Installed 18.04.4 alongside 20.04 to get GRUB v2.02 (20.04 has v2.04).
Compared a 20.04.1 LiveUSB fsck scan (1min40sec) against the installed 20.04.1 boot up delay (50sec). I had thought that fsck was running before each boot without any indication. journalctl -u systemd-fsck* seems to show that fsck scans are skipped after a condition check.
Changed a BIOS EFI setting to Auto, Non-EFI, and Legacy. The 20.04.1 installer always creates an EFI (ESP) partition despite the setting. Manually creating only an EXT4 partition with a / flag results in no change.
Physically removed the 2nd GPU (GTX 1060), a USB 3.0 PCI card, and all other unneccessary peripherals.
Used Nvidia drivers instead of nouveau for the GT 710 with the GTX 1060 removed.
Disabled Gigabyte motherboard SATA ports within BIOS leaving only ICH10 SATA ports enabled.
Installed other versions and flavors. 18.04.4, 19.10, 20.10, and a daily build of 21.04 all reached the login screen in under 10 seconds. 20.04.1, Fedora 33, and Linux Mint 20 & 20.1 all booted after about 50 seconds or longer.
Summary:
Ubuntu versions 18.04.4, 19.10, 20.10, and 21.04 reach the login screen in under 10 seconds. Only 20.04.1 hangs on a purple screen for at least 50 seconds before login when installed on a Samsung 850, 840, or an Intel 330 SSD. Only when 20.04.1 is installed on a Mushkin Chronos SSD does it reach login in under 10 seconds.
