slow loading of initrd/kernel from ext file system on kirkwood/dockstar

[Till Maas]

Hi,

I noticed that loading the kernel/initrd from an ext4 file system as it
is the default on F18 Beta is very slow compared to vfat. It takes
several minutes instead of seconds. Is this only the case on my
dockstar? I already updated the uboot to the latest release I found on
http://people.debian.org/~tbm/u-boot/ but it did not help.

Regards
Till

[Sean Omalley]

im guessing here, but IIRC ext2 is supported by the firmware and not ext4.. so if you really are loading your kernel, initramfs, and
such from ext4, it might cause some slowness. I also noticed on the pogoplug e02, when I tried F17, it was slow, but I think that had to do with USB 1.0 and booting off a usb thumb drive. (apparently uboot was only recognizing the usb port as usb1.0).

----- Original Message -----
> From: Till Maas 
> To: [e-mail]
> Cc: 
> Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 5:04 PM
> Subject: [fedora-arm] slow loading of initrd/kernel from ext file system on kirkwood/dockstar
>
> Hi,
>
> I noticed that loading the kernel/initrd from an ext4 file system as it
> is the default on F18 Beta is very slow compared to vfat. It takes
> several minutes instead of seconds. Is this only the case on my
> dockstar? I already updated the uboot to the latest release I found on
> http://people.debian.org/~tbm/u-boot/ but it did not help.
>
> Regards
> Till
> _______________________________________________
> arm mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm

[Sean Omalley]

I think the slowness you are experiencing is because you aren't writing the kernel and initramfs images to nand. 
If you do that, it will speed up the boot considerably. :) in otherwords, the commands I looked at for the guruplug,
copied the kernel and initramfs from the device, then boot from there. If that is working there are some directions somewhere,
that tell you how to do the nand.erase nand.write. then you change the boot command to just boot those addresses. which will skip about 5+ minutes of the boot time. :)

However, I was having issues writing to the nand on mine, it was generating a ton of errors with the nand.write command.  :) 
slow boot is better then no boot, i suppose. :)

----- Original Message -----
> From: Sean Omalley 
> To: Till Maas ; "[e-mail]" 
> Cc: 
> Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 11:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [fedora-arm] slow loading of initrd/kernel from ext file system on kirkwood/dockstar
>
> im guessing here, but IIRC ext2 is supported by the firmware and not ext4.. so 
> if you really are loading your kernel, initramfs, and
> such from ext4, it might cause some slowness. I also noticed on the pogoplug 
> e02, when I tried F17, it was slow, but I think that had to do with USB 1.0 and 
> booting off a usb thumb drive. (apparently uboot was only recognizing the usb 
> port as usb1.0).
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Till Maas 
> >  To: [e-mail]
> >  Cc: 
> >  Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 5:04 PM
> >  Subject: [fedora-arm] slow loading of initrd/kernel from ext file system on
>
> kirkwood/dockstar
> > Hi,
> >
> > I noticed that loading the kernel/initrd from an ext4 file system as it
> >  is the default on F18 Beta is very slow compared to vfat. It takes
> >  several minutes instead of seconds. Is this only the case on my
> >  dockstar? I already updated the uboot to the latest release I found on
> >  http://people.debian.org/~tbm/u-boot/ but it did not help.
> >
> > Regards
> >  Till
> >  _______________________________________________
> >  arm mailing list
> >  [e-mail]
> >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm
>
> arm mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm