Feedback for readahead

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Armin Berres]
> No, I don't use the preload package. You can find the bootcharts here:
> http://alioth.debian.org/~trigger-guest/bootcharts/

Thank you.  Those do look strange, indeed.  Did the profile step
update both the files in /etc/readahead/?  Do you have /var/ or /usr/
on a separate partition from /?  You did profile readahead to match
your machine, right?  The fact that the boot is still reading files
from disk even after readahead loaded the files make me believe that
you might be using the default files, and those are not adjusted to
your needs.

> Apart from preloading the boot sequence it would be quite
> interesting, to preload the desktop startup as long as the DM is
> shown and the user didn't log in. kdm has an option to start and
> stop such a script automatically. Maybe it would make sense to give
> readahead a try in this scenario, too? One just need to find a sane
> way, to figure out which files should be preloaded. Maybe loading
> all files which are accessed in the first 20 seconds or so...

This is the focus of the preload package.  It loads the files used by
the desktop, among other things.  Because of this, one must disable it
while profiling readahead, to avoid readahead believing that the files
loaded by preload for the desktop is needed during boot, as it would
lead to the desktop files being loaded as part of the boot and thus
slow down the boot.

Happy hacking,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen