Slow boot times of Lubuntu 22.04 LTS on some hardware

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Starting with Ubuntu 20.10 the boot process of Ubuntu ISOs was altered so all architectures would be booting the same for all releases. Before this change, some boxes used syslinux, others used grub etc… but now all boot the same for a given release. These changes of course impacted all flavors like Lubuntu.

This had a negative impact on some boxes with specific firmware versions that cause them to boot live Ubuntu ISO rather slowly; thankfully it only impacted a very small number of boxes, and only during the boot of installation media; ie. once the live system had booted, was installed to a local disk - the issue did not re-occur.

For example, if I boot Lubuntu 22.04 LTS media on

  • motion computing j3400 (c2d-u9400, 4gb, intel mobile 4 series)

with the ISO cloned normally to thumb-drive, the box has the following boot times

  • 7:09 (7 mins 9 secs) first boot message appears on screen
  • 7:17 lubuntu plymouth is seen
  • 7:54 system messages replace plymouth
  • 8:21 Xorg mouse pointer is seen
  • 9:02 lubuntu wallpaper is drawn
  • 9:10 the system is fully functional

The issue I’m documenting here is during boot; there was 7 minutes 9 seconds where the only thing on screen was a blinking cursor. This issue is documented here [where you may note the original poster of the report actually believed the system wasn’t booting; alas it was just slow to boot]

There is a workaround documented in the bug report, however as we only install a system [ideally] once (and the issue doesn’t occur on an installed system), my suggestion is just to be patient waiting for your installation media to boot. It also impacts only a small number of boxes, with specific firmware code.

On this motion computing box, Lubuntu 22.04 LTS was fully booted within 10 minutes (note: it takes a little longer for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or other flavors needing up to two minutes extra!), so please just take this as a warning to be patient. Your box may need ~10 minutes to boot recent Lubuntu releases.

Notes:

  • this isn’t an issue with Lubuntu 20.04 LTS or earlier, and impacts all Ubuntu ISOs equally.
  • times mentioned are for the box used as example; your box maybe faster/slower both in CPU but also firmware which is what really causes this slow-boot process
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I just completed a test boot on the device I used in this example of Lubuntu kinetic (what will be 22.10 on release), and had it fully-operational in ~2:25 (2 mins 25 secs) which contrasts significantly to the Lubuntu 22.04 LTS (jammy) in this document which has a boot time of 9:10.

I mentioned a workaround in the the bug report, the workaround (how I wrote the ISO) can be found here with speed result taken from here, the tool I wrote the ISO with created by our own Lubuntu member @sudodus.

I stated I don’t consider a special write with workaround is necessary (we usually only install a system once), but if you boot thumb-drives many times (ie. using live sessions, or rely on live with persistence sessions), this workaround allows booting live or live with persistence. :slight_smile:

mkusb is a great tool (that I use regularly).

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Minor glimmer of hope…

I’m hopeful we may get a fix for this for new releases; including Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (which of course will include Lubuntu 22.04.1 LTS)

Of course we’ll have to watch, wait & see. :slight_smile:

Alas my link didn’t include what really grabbed me; the

Changed in casper (Ubuntu):
milestone: none → ubuntu-22.04.1

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I’d love to say the slow to boot was resolved… alas there are so many different hardware platforms we have (each with its own firmware) problems with some boxes may always be with us…

Booting the Lubuntu lunar (23.04) daily on

  • lenovo g560 (i5m-480, 4gb, i915)

and I get

  • ~4:30 (4 mins 30 secs) for first message to appear on screen
  • ~4:34 secs for plymouth to appear
  • ~5:17 screen blanks & Xorg starting is evident
  • ~5:53 secs for wallpaper to appear
  • ~6:01 and desktop is fully functional (on that box)

This is just an issue booting the live media from which we install; you won’t have issues once the install has been made, so ideally we’ll only have this slow boot the once :slight_smile:

(Officially Lubuntu beta hasn’t been released yet, but we’re at RC or Release Candidate state, thus the current daily is treated as a beta)

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