OrangePiZero, Armbian_20.05.1_Orangepizero_buster_current_5.4.43

 

in RPI they have an option "Boot without waiting for network connection" which to be honest I do not know does what under the hood.

What can I use with armbian to get faster boot time? I do not use Ethernet at all, I use wifi but do not want to wait for it to start using my device.

 

Here is my boot statistics:

 

root@orangepizero:~# systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 7.295s (kernel) + 29.971s (userspace) = 37.266s
graphical.target reached after 29.810s in userspace
 

 

root@orangepizero:~# systemd-analyze blame
          8.967s networkd-dispatcher.service
          7.813s loadcpufreq.service
          7.677s NetworkManager.service
          7.379s wpa_supplicant.service
          7.360s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
          7.265s rng-tools.service
          7.236s systemd-logind.service
          7.174s sysstat.service
          7.154s rsyslog.service
 

You could for example remove all the WiFi stuff and/or compile your own kernel with WiFi in general removed.

A higher quality sd card (A2 class) can make a difference.

You could also disable the "NetworkManager-wait-online.service" service. This normally waits a few seconds until some network connection has been established.

 

Use "systemctl disable NetworkManager-wait-online.service" to disable it.

I need wifi to work I just do not need wifi to be ready to boot.

 

Thank you Heisath that  "systemctl disable NetworkManager-wait-online.service" has made things better! But RPI is still starting a bit faster. If needed I can setup both systems with exactly same SD cards, those play a role but probably but software configuration does matter as well I assume.

 

orange@orangepizero:~$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 6.549s (kernel) + 16.664s (userspace) = 23.214s

 

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 1.642s (kernel) + 7.302s (userspace) = 8.944s

 

 

orange@orangepizero:~$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 6.549s (kernel) + 16.664s (userspace) = 23.214s
graphical.target reached after 16.444s in userspace
orange@orangepizero:~$ systemd-analyze blame
          4.758s armbian-zram-config.service
          4.697s armbian-ramlog.service
          2.786s dev-mmcblk0p1.device
          2.589s networkd-dispatcher.service
          1.447s networking.service
          1.280s NetworkManager.service
          1.141s loadcpufreq.service
          1.070s systemd-udev-trigger.service
          1.027s keyboard-setup.service

 

 

 

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ systemd-analyze blame
          4.637s apt-daily.service
          3.335s apt-daily-upgrade.service
          1.833s dev-mmcblk0p2.device
          1.700s udisks2.service
          1.684s raspi-config.service
           826ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2dpartuuid-738a4d67\x2d01.service
           709ms keyboard-setup.service
           648ms ssh.service
           622ms systemd-timesyncd.service
           578ms user@1000.service
           563ms lightdm.service
           520ms wpa_supplicant.service
           505ms plymouth-read-write.service
           485ms plymouth-quit-wait.service
           482ms networking.service
 

1 hour ago, rusefi said:

But RPI is still starting a bit faster.

No, it is not. Your comparison is not equal. But I am sure you had broken SDcards on your RPi, because of missing functions like:

 

4.758s armbian-zram-config.service
4.697s armbian-ramlog.service

 

Tide, you are mistaken in your assumption that I had broken SD cards in my RPI. I have not yet rebooted it 1000 times since I guess it's about startup logs tourtering the card. I also believe that this is pretty standard RPI with very mild changes.

 

can you please explain your arguments a bit better? I have a feeling that I can learn a lot from you.

 

what would be a better comparison methodology? I guess I should wire up grio LED to both boards and see at which point user startup script would turn them on.

3 hours ago, rusefi said:

I have a feeling that I can learn a lot from you.

I am afraid not, but I can guide you to some interesting information about ZRAM & RAMlog

ZRAM  https://forum.armbian.com/topic/5565-zram-vs-swap/

 

RAMlog or Log2RAM     @Igor, which technology is in use nowadays?   https://github.com/azlux/log2ram   I cannot find anything about RAMLOG.

 

And last, but not least, if you want to have the fastest booting device: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/8315-daily-tech-related-news-diet/?do=findComment&comment=87296  or  https://forum.armbian.com/topic/8315-daily-tech-related-news-diet/?do=findComment&comment=90239

 

11 minutes ago, Tido said:

which technology is in use nowadays? 

Both are the same, different implementation. Those are just two out of services that boots up. If one wants to make a direct comparison, he needs to run same (and version of) services for start. Raspbian and Armbain are different enough that this is not possible without some tweaking and also on a hw level there are diffs. And a kernel version is not the same ... But if one wants to get a better boot time, things can be improved ... usually on cost of some features. Some services boots faster (old classic networking VS network manager, timesync daemon,...), some might be useless? I don't know without deep analysis ...

 

If you come up with something that is generally usable, integration can be done https://www.armbian.com/get-involved

A RaspberryPi and any board that is supported by Armbian cannot be compared really.

At RaspberryPi a lot of people working with just a few boards while at Armbian just a few people working literally on hundreds of boards which not even share the same sources. You see while at their place they have plenty of time to tweak every aspect Armbian simply cannot do that due to lack of ressources.

Anyway, next steps to save time are:

- completely remove NetworkManager (you need to do your network config the classic way then). 

- remove armbian zram and ramlog (which can be done via apt remove or just disable the services) 

- make sure your device does not run a fsck on every boot 

- remove u-boot 'prompt timeout' (the time the bootloader waits for user input before booting the system, I guess thats 3s default on armbian) 

 

Btw. no guarantee that your system works perfectly after above steps - there's a reason for every service running.