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My system takes ages to boot, especially to log in. I'm not sure how I should go about the problem - I can't use Ubuntu like that.

  • Here are the relevant parts from dmesg -d:

    [   15.997008 <    2.347582>] Adding 16062460k swap on /dev/sdc5.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:16062460k FS
[   20.466801 <    4.469793>] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlx74da387e95a8: link is not ready
[   20.478821 <    0.012020>] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlx74da387e95a8: link is not ready
[   21.020986 <    0.542165>] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlx74da387e95a8: link is not ready
[   37.437661 <   16.416675>] wlx74da387e95a8: authenticate with e8:74:e6:09:de:69

    and

    [  112.496226 <   75.016139>] usb 1-1.3: rtl8xxxu_ampdu_action: IEEE80211_AMPDU_RX_START

    The latter is the driver of my Wirelesss stick, the Edimax EW-7811Un running on RTL8188Cu. The driver isn't original, I had to manually install it and replace the original one in order for the stick to work properly.

  • Here's my systemd plot:

    systemd plot

    • Time my system needs for startup, measured with a phone:

      • 30s for bootup, as indicated in the bootchart
      • 2 minutes 10 seconds for login and opening of terminal using Ctrl+Alt+T

    • Maybe there is a problem with my harddrive - or my /home partition specifically. When logging in, Ubuntu behaves as if the loading process was very slow: I first see my background for a long time, then unity appears but is unreactive for a bit - then my launcher takes a while to load and finally the first application I launch takes a while as well. After that everything works with quite a decent speed though, as if it cached the files - I don't know enough about Linux to speculate about that though. Notice that the mounting of my /home-partition takes up most of the time of the booting process by far.

      About my file system: My root is an 500GB Ext4 partition. I then have a sepearte NTSF partition on the same harddrive for the /home directory. Root, /home and Swap are all on the same harddrive.

    • I created a new account to see if it takes a long time to log in as well. It doesn't. Neither does logging in from the virtual terminals.
    • Resetting unity using dconf reset -f /org/compiz and then setsid unity doesn't change anything either.
Nearoo
  • 124
  • Oh well, looks like I'll have to switch to Fedora... – Nearoo Sep 06 '16 at 12:57
  • +David Foerster Ok, thanks for the tip. But you know, I'm a bit tired with ubuntu. I tried to do what you said. First I couldn't install it because the folder was locked, so I had to google the error message to see what the problem was: My system was currently updating itself. Cool, wait a bit until it's done. Finally it worked. So I rebooted, but the bootchart folder was empty. Again, google the problem: A bug. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bootchart/+bug/1458170 Well, 15 minutes wasted. Nice. Windows it is, again... – Nearoo Oct 08 '16 at 10:54
  • @DavidFoerster Alright, did that: http://askubuntu.com/questions/834529/bootchart-folder-empty-after-reboot Though I think people would've already written a solution to that problem in this post. Thanks for your help. – Nearoo Oct 08 '16 at 11:12
  • @DavidFoerster No problem. At least I have a bootchart now. I updated my question. – Nearoo Oct 08 '16 at 12:10
  • @DavidFoerster I wrote "My system takes ages to boot, especially to log in." I have actually just measured the time for both processes. Boot time takes about 30 seconds, as indicated in boot chart. But after I login I have to wait 2:10 minutes until I can use it. Seems like the bootchart isn't actually that useful, sadly. (Dmesg displays messages until after the login process, right?). – Nearoo Oct 08 '16 at 13:04
  • @DavidFoerster It might be a problem with my hard drive, or simply my home-partition. I first see my background for a long time before unity appears very slowly. The first application I launch as well as the unity launcher both take very long to load as well - but after that it works quite decently (after caching it, maybe...? I don't know much about linux). Also notice how the mounting of my hard drive is the process that takes up most of my booting time, by far... – Nearoo Oct 08 '16 at 13:05
  • @DavidFoerster About my filesystem: I have a seperate NTFS partition I use as /home. Root (Ext4), Swap and /home partition are all on the same hard drive. – Nearoo Oct 08 '16 at 13:08
  • @DavidFoerster Good idea, tried it. Both only take seconds. I also tried resetting unity as I tweaked it with Unity Tweak Tool, but with no success. Added this information to the question. – Nearoo Oct 09 '16 at 17:04
  • Ok, great! That means something in the per-user configuration of the graphical session is to blame. Let's eliminate other possible sources of stuff happening on login: ~/.profile, ~/.xsession, ~/.xsessionrc, ~/.xinitrc, and ~/.config/autostart/. You can rename them temporarily. You could also try a different desktop session type, e. g. Gnome, Xfce or LXDE (you can install them and later remove them with Apt). – David Foerster Oct 09 '16 at 18:06
  • @DavidFoerster Alright, I tried to move all folders/files you listed - only ~/.config/autostart existed, though. After a quick look into that folder I found that "shutter", the screenshot-tool, was still in there even though I had set it to not start at boot time. It already made problems back then. So removing that out of the folder brought down log-in time from 2 minutes to 40 seconds, yay! Though e.g. Chromium still needs like 1:30 minutes to load, do you have any suggestions on that? Windows runs way faster on the same machine. – Nearoo Oct 14 '16 at 22:16
  • Good to hear that! It would be great if you could [edit] your question to include your findings. Don't forget to update the tags to suit the actual root cause! Do you want to self-answer it with your actual solution (or an equivalent thereof)? Notify me in chat if you want an up-vote on that. – David Foerster Oct 15 '16 at 08:58
  • About the Chromium issue: could you please open a new question if you have a new or follow-up question? The comment section is not suitable or meant for new questions or extended discussion. Include the hardware specs (most importantly CPU, GPU, RAM, storage type(s)) because they're likely relevant here. You can notify me in chat about it if you want. Thanks. – David Foerster Oct 15 '16 at 08:59

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