Bug #16393

feature/buster boots much slower than Tails 3.x

Added by intrigeri 2019-01-28 23:43:18 . Updated 2019-04-03 12:51:53 .

Status:
Rejected
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
Tails_4.0
Start date:
2019-01-28
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Research
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Deliverable for:

Description

On Feature #16138#note-9 I’ve noticed that on the two spare laptops I have handy, feature/buster takes respectively 15% and 55% longer than Tails 3.x to go from the bootloader to the Greeter (USB image dd’ed to a fast USB drive and booted once before measuring so that the partitioning dance is out of the way).

If this is fully explained by the outdated SquashFS sort file, fine. Otherwise, we might have a problem.

Subtasks

Related issues

Related to Tails - Feature #16138: Ship a pre-compiled AppArmor binary cache Resolved 2018-11-19

History

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2019-01-28 23:44:51

Next step: update the SquashFS sort file on feature/buster and measure again. Alternatively, ensure we do update that file when releasing the first beta, then measure (this would save a bit of time now, but will inform our work planning later).

#2 Updated by intrigeri 2019-01-28 23:45:02

  • Subject changed from Investigate why feature/buster boots much slower than Tails 3.x to feature/buster boots much slower than Tails 3.x

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2019-01-28 23:48:11

  • related to Feature #16138: Ship a pre-compiled AppArmor binary cache added

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2019-04-03 10:13:27

tl;dr: updating the SquashFS sort file improves things quite a bit; it’s sufficient to make the boot almost as fast as Tails 3.x on a 5 years old laptop, but on a 11 years old laptop Buster still takes 21% more time to boot.

Next steps:

  • try to spot new bottlenecks on the bootchart (systemd-analyze plot)
  • benchmark Feature #16138 again

Measuring boot time from pressing Enter in the syslinux menu to the desktop being ready (including desktop icons), after pressing Enter quickly in the Greeter:

  • 3.13.1
    • HP EliteBook 840G1: 71 seconds
    • ThinkPad X200: 122 seconds
  • feature/buster before updating SquashFS sort file
    • HP EliteBook 840G1: 95 seconds
    • ThinkPad X200: ~180 seconds
  • feature/buster after updating SquashFS sort file
    • HP EliteBook 840G1: 75 seconds (+ 6% compared to 3.13.1)
    • ThinkPad X200: 148 seconds (+ 21% compared to 3.13.1)

#5 Updated by intrigeri 2019-04-03 12:51:53

  • Status changed from Confirmed to Rejected

I’ve found no obvious reason why Buster is slower to boot so let’s do Feature #16138 — which already makes feature/buster a bit faster to boot than Tails 3.13.1 — and boom.