shutdown on BSD and Linux

[Matthew Dillon]

:
:This is because Linux lies about kernel loading. When kernel boots it has 
:so little functions that you have the impression it is very fast. But all
:the hardware drivers are loaded after, when init launches hardware
:detection and kernel modules loading. It is all those hardware probes 
:which take time when (free|dragon)bsd load. I am puzzled hat nobody mentions
:the most widely used OS which has parallel boot, it is WindowsXP. On my
:machine which triple boots Windows, BSD and Linux, it is Windows which
:boots faster by fast, in fact it takes half the time of unices to be in
:graphical mode able to use the machine. But it is clear that at this moment
:Windows is still loading stuff, and if you wait that everything is loaded it
:takes far longer to boot than any unix. On my machine, Ubuntu takes around
:the same time as FreeBSD to boot, faster than the Linux distro i had
:previously (Debian Sarge).
:
:-- 
:Michel Talon

    My windows box (XP) boots much faster then anything else I have, though
    to be fair it isn't *quite* as fast as might be apparent by looking at
    the display since microsoft throws up the UI as soon as possible, even
    though most of it stays locked for another few seconds while MS finishes
    booting.

    Theoretically we can boot considerably faster then we currently do.  The
    clock calibration could be recorded and transmitted to the boot by a
    kernel environment variable, saving 2 seconds.  The IDE configuration
    could be recorded and transmitted to the boot code the same way, so the
    IDE code doesn't have to wait for the full IDE timeout spec when probing
    IDE devices, and the RCNG stuff could start various subsystems up in 
    parallel instead of sequentially.

    It has never been a serious priority for us, but none of the above is 
    difficult to do if someone wants to tackle some of it.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon at xxxxxxxxxxxxx>