You are not logged in.
Hello everyone. Hope all is well. I just want to ask, what makes BunsenLabs FAST. As the title says, 8.08 seconds from the moment I hit enter on grub menu to log in screen and just another 2 seconds to get a desktop. That's pretty quick compared to other distros. I upgraded my kernel to 6.12.32 but it can't be all about the kernel, could it? And my PC is rather old. I'm using a 3rd gen i5 3570.
I'm really intrigued. LOL
Offline
I'm curious as well. I'm using a later i3 with 8GB of memory and Bunsen flies. I have not timed it with a stopwatch, but a rough count for me is about 10-12 seconds after grub for the desktop to open. Even better, shutdown is near instantaneous. I hit "Power Off" and it's off in two seconds. You barely have time to read the system dialogue that briefly appears afterwards.
After years of using a bloated and aging Ubuntu install, Bunsen has been a breath of fresh air. There must be some voodoo going on under the hood.
Linux User #624832 : Chaotic Good Dudeist, retro-PC geek.
Daily Driver : Lenovo Ideapad 3 (8G RAM, 250G SSD, Boron)
Workstation : HP Slim Desktop (4G RAM, 1TB HDD, Boron)
Past hardware : Commodore 64, TRS-80, IBM 8088, WebTV
Offline
Listen carefully, you'll hear the noises coming from the Bunsen Labs!
{crunch bang}
Gotta be an old member to get that one.
Debian 12 Beardog, SoxDog and still a Conky 1.9er
Offline
Tag. I'm super interested too!
Offline
@Sector11 - Got It!
Offline
Hello everyone. Hope all is well. I just want to ask, what makes BunsenLabs FAST. As the title says, 8.08 seconds from the moment I hit enter on grub menu to log in screen and just another 2 seconds to get a desktop. That's pretty quick compared to other distros. I upgraded my kernel to 6.12.32 but it can't be all about the kernel, could it? And my PC is rather old. I'm using a 3rd gen i5 3570.
I'm really intrigued. LOL
What are the full specs? Type of hard drive etc ...
You can run:
systemd-analyze
to get the startup times (example for CachyOS):
Startup finished in 5.483s (firmware) + 5.709s (loader) + 3.945s (kernel) + 29.966s (userspace) = 45.104s
graphical.target reached after 29.965s in userspace.
and
systemd-analyze blame
to see all the services and their times to start.
You must unlearn what you have learned.
-- yoda
Online
Hey @PackRat - Thanks for the reply. Here are the results of the commands. I'm really blown away with these results. I'm not expecting this from an old PC.
For systemd-analyze:
Startup finished in 105us (firmware) + 93us (loader) + 1.764s (kernel) + 1.758s (userspace) = 3.523s
graphical.target reached after 1.745s in userspace.
For systemd-analyze blame:
274ms udisks2.service
245ms dev-sda2.device
187ms user@1000.service
129ms boot-efi.mount
118ms e2scrub_reap.service
97ms systemd-udev-trigger.service
80ms systemd-journal-flush.service
79ms NetworkManager.service
78ms ModemManager.service
78ms networking.service
74ms loadcpufreq.service
69ms upower.service
65ms systemd-journald.service
64ms systemd-udevd.service
62ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-3490c31b\x2d53cc\x2d4d50\x2dae74\x2d3088497f8840.service
60ms lvm2-monitor.service
57ms smartmontools.service
48ms systemd-logind.service
44ms logrotate.service
41ms systemd-timesyncd.service
40ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-4EEC\x2d196F.service
40ms systemd-timedated.service
37ms polkit.service
36ms cpufrequtils.service
32ms wpa_supplicant.service
26ms systemd-update-utmp.service
24ms alsa-restore.service
24ms lm-sensors.service
24ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
24ms atd.service
20ms dbus.service
19ms dev-hugepages.mount
18ms systemd-sysusers.service
18ms dev-mqueue.mount
18ms systemd-random-seed.service
18ms sys-kernel-debug.mount
17ms sys-kernel-tracing.mount
16ms keyboard-setup.service
16ms systemd-rfkill.service
16ms kmod-static-nodes.service
15ms systemd-binfmt.service
14ms modprobe@configfs.service
13ms modprobe@drm.service
13ms systemd-remount-fs.service
13ms modprobe@fuse.service
12ms lightdm.service
9ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
9ms systemd-modules-load.service
9ms user-runtime-dir@1000.service
8ms proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount
8ms systemd-sysctl.service
6ms console-setup.service
6ms systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service
6ms systemd-user-sessions.service
5ms modprobe@dm_mod.service
5ms modprobe@efi_pstore.service
4ms modprobe@loop.service
3ms home.mount
3ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount
2ms ifupdown-pre.service
2ms sys-kernel-config.mount
21us blk-availability.service
System specs:
Intel i5 3570
4GB Ram
SSD - Samsung model: MZ7KM960HAHP-00005
GPU - NVidia Quadro k620
Offline
That's impressive for an older machine; especially the network times. This computer hardwired to the modem?
Either way, BL is a pretty good fit for your hardware.
You must unlearn what you have learned.
-- yoda
Online
Cool command. I didn't know about that one. I can't wait to run it the next time I fire up the old Ubuntu machine. I bet it looks a lot different than this current result I get from my Bunsen machine :
Startup finished in 4.542s (kernel) + 6.647s (userspace) = 11.190s
graphical.target reached after 6.631s in userspace.
Last edited by GalacticStone (2025-07-10 14:52:26)
Linux User #624832 : Chaotic Good Dudeist, retro-PC geek.
Daily Driver : Lenovo Ideapad 3 (8G RAM, 250G SSD, Boron)
Workstation : HP Slim Desktop (4G RAM, 1TB HDD, Boron)
Past hardware : Commodore 64, TRS-80, IBM 8088, WebTV
Offline
That's impressive for an older machine; especially the network times. This computer hardwired to the modem?
Either way, BL is a pretty good fit for your hardware.
Nope. Also have an outdated router.
Offline
- and I don't even use NetworkManager!
2025·07·10 @ 20:21:22 ~
$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 12.315s (firmware) + 4.872s (loader) + 4.620s (kernel) + 22.458s (userspace) = 44.266s
graphical.target reached after 22.433s in userspace.
2025·07·10 @ 20:21:32 ~
$ systemd-analyze blame
16.004s apt-daily.service
8.221s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
7.991s e2scrub_reap.service
5.626s udisks2.service
5.503s systemd-journal-flush.service
4.854s dev-sda1.device
2.677s NetworkManager.service
1.768s collectl.service
1.743s apt-show-versions.service
1.685s man-db.service
1.378s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-5be1c1f6\x2d5529\x2d4aa4\x2d8dfa\x2dfc97eaed6b0d.service
1.083s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-7ec885aa\x2d375b\x2d4425\x2da748\x2d1f003928074e.service
1.081s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-f6e706be\x2d9200\x2d4e41\x2d9664\x2dd331523e9612.service
1.005s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-d1f0001c\x2d1bd1\x2d4cbe\x2da29a\x2d26817ac86e72.service
942ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-40CF\x2d0E95.service
829ms smartmontools.service
791ms ntpsec.service
764ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-4197d44b\x2dd975\x2d4e00\x2da029\x2db6943d941149.service
590ms dbus.service
590ms dbus.service
545ms systemd-logind.service
534ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-faa4c47c\x2dd3e2\x2d42f6\x2d8c36\x2dae5ae243c731.service
454ms networking.service
454ms systemd-modules-load.service
424ms polkit.service
417ms systemd-random-seed.service
409ms systemd-journald.service
401ms apt-daily-upgrade.service
354ms wpa_supplicant.service
346ms lm-sensors.service
345ms systemd-udev-trigger.service
324ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
252ms media-5.mount
236ms keyboard-setup.service
235ms systemd-sysusers.service
231ms boot-efi.mount
210ms logrotate.service
209ms systemd-udevd.service
208ms lpd.service
185ms dictd.service
180ms user@1000.service
173ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
169ms systemd-sysctl.service
166ms home.mount
157ms systemd-remount-fs.service
151ms kmod-static-nodes.service
150ms modprobe@drm.service
127ms dev-hugepages.mount
127ms dev-mqueue.mount
126ms sys-kernel-debug.mount
125ms sys-kernel-tracing.mount
120ms media-11.mount
110ms systemd-user-sessions.service
103ms fstrim.service
92ms dev-disk-by\x2duuid-d67f9b04\x2d2d7e\x2d47b4\x2da896\x2d89748a4e1065.swap
88ms ifupdown-pre.service
87ms upower.service
87ms alsa-restore.service
85ms media-BD\x2dH.mount
84ms sys-kernel-config.mount
75ms modprobe@fuse.service
64ms media-BD\x2dR.mount
62ms systemd-update-utmp.service
60ms console-setup.service
55ms systemd-binfmt.service
49ms media-10.mount
21ms modprobe@configfs.service
20ms user-runtime-dir@1000.service
14ms e2scrub_all.service
13ms cups.service
12ms systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
11ms proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount
10ms dpkg-db-backup.service
9ms systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service
8ms modprobe@efi_pstore.service
7ms modprobe@loop.service
4ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount
3ms modprobe@dm_mod.service
3ms apt-listbugs.service
Then I found this command:
2025·07·10 @ 20:32:36 ~
$ systemd-analyze critical-chain
The time when unit became active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit took to start is printed after the "+" character.
graphical.target @22.433s
└─multi-user.target @22.433s
└─collectl.service @20.664s +1.768s
└─network-online.target @20.638s
└─NetworkManager-wait-online.service @12.416s +8.221s
└─NetworkManager.service @9.699s +2.677s
└─dbus.service @9.087s +590ms
└─basic.target @9.043s
└─sockets.target @9.042s
└─uuidd.socket @9.042s
└─sysinit.target @9.015s
└─systemd-update-utmp.service @8.952s +62ms
└─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @8.761s +173ms
└─local-fs.target @8.705s
└─run-credentials-systemd\x2dtmpfiles\x2dsetup.service.mount @8.768s
└─local-fs-pre.target @1.934s
└─systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service @1.609s +324ms
└─systemd-sysusers.service @1.373s +235ms
└─systemd-remount-fs.service @1.177s +157ms
└─systemd-journald.socket @1.131s
└─-.mount @1.109s
└─-.slice @1.109s
I have NO IDEA!
Debian 12 Beardog, SoxDog and still a Conky 1.9er
Offline
The systemd-analyze time (or blame) commands are very useful.
There's a good way to find out what the problem is if the startup is slow:
systemd-analyze critical-chain
The lines on the critical chain are marked in red.
Anything that happens between the two red lines does not affect the system's boot speed.
Example (red lines from my output):
└─kerneloops.service...
...
└─NetworkManager-wait-online.service...
└─NetworkManager.service...
...
└─dev-disk-by\...
Notes *
1) Please do not disable services that are part of the critical chain until you have determined whether it is necessary (and safe)
2) The hardware you have also affects the system's boot speed
If people would know how little brain is ruling the world, they would die of fear.
Offline
This is really cool! I enjoy toubleshooting so I love this stuff.
Offline
@Sector11
You can limit this to the last 10.
systemd-analyze blame | head
because only these are of interest.
With the help of critical-chain, you can analyze which services are “droning”(tröteln). This will be different with every restart. Whether you use the network manager or not is irrelevant. The services are there and also do things with the tool you use to access the Internet (or the tool needs them).
Edit: In siduction, we analyzed this over a longer period of time.
If, for example, this:
8.221s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
appears again and again as a 'slow candidate', we have then 'masked' it. That didn't really help either.
Edit2:
Who is e.g. collectl.service ?
I don't have this one.
So show me what it does.
systemctl status collectl.service
You don't need to worry about that.
systemctl status apt-daily.service
○ apt-daily.service - Daily apt download activities
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/apt-daily.service; static)
Active: inactive (dead)
TriggeredBy: ● apt-daily.timer
Docs: man:apt(8)
I assume apt has just checked for updates.
Last edited by unklar (2025-07-11 15:21:29)
Offline