Hi, i am 4m PB. You may remember me from posts like "OMG! Its RPG time again! (spam, ignore)" or "yet more spam (ignore even more)". Today i want you to share your startup times, in other words how fast your system boots.

These are the startup times on my Acer laptop: (1.73 GHz, 1 GB RAM)
Windows XP: 46 seconds
Puppy Linux: 48 Seconds
Sabayon Linux: 1.06 minutes to the login screen

(times taken with the stopwatch function of my wrist watch "Casio Illuminator")

On my Dell Inspiron E1505:

Windows Vista: I don't know, I can't get a clock to last that long
Zenwalk Linux: 20 sec in text only mode, 30-35 sec in graphical mode

Vista can be fast. Check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j60-nsS8ZA

it's funny how my "visty" theme on Sabayon takes ~ 2 mins.

Debian on eeePC 1000: 9 seconds from grub to login prompt
plus a few seconds to start X and openbox

Well, I was curious, so I did the same tests. Here are the results ranked from slowest to quickest. The times are to a usable desktop (10 seconds after you first see it in the case of XP). All times measured with a Teletex clock on the TV (nothing else with seconds anywhere nearby ). If you like you can add to all of the below the 6 seconds it takes for the BIOS to stop messing around and get to the GRUB menu.

- Puppy Linux - 54s (took off 3 seconds for login questions)
- Windows XP Pro (32 bit) - 46s
- Arch Linux (64 bit) - 36s (including 8s after login prompt for KDE to start)
- Windows 7 Beta (64 bit) - 32s

This actually surprises me, because Windows 7 seems quicker than that. The only time I've been regularly using it is in the morning before work to get to the internet as fast as I can, but I guess it doesn't really make much difference. Oh well.

Of course, Windows 7 is a new installation, and every one knows Windows start up times approximately double with each update.

For those interested in fast boot check moblin project. Now this is fast.

hehhwaxz...All times measured with a tiffany necklaces Teletex clock on the TV (nothing else with seconds anywhere nearby ...true religion jeans