Re: Long lag time to boot to usb devices

[Goh Lip]

On 07/09/2011 03:09 AM, Jordan Uggla wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 1:04 AM, Goh Lip<address@hidden>  wrote:
> > This is not a 'show stopper', just that it been a while and neither grub
> > 1.98 nor grub 1.99 has resolved it.
> >
> > When booting up OS in usb external drives, either flash or disk, there is a
> > 35 secs delay before anything kicks in.
> >
> > So I wonder if there has been any schedule of action to resolve it.
> >
> > Thanks - Goh Lip

> By default grub uses BIOS interfaces to access all drives (though
> native USB and other drivers are available) and BIOS interfaces don't
> differentiate between internal vs external, SATA vs IDE vs USB etc. So
> any difference in working with these devices is almost certainly an
> aspect of your particular BIOS rather than an aspect of grub. That
> said, as grub does have native USB drivers there may be ways to work
> around BIOS issues, though it sounds like that would at least require
> that grub itself be loaded from an internal drive. Can you be more
> clear about what you mean by "before anything kicks in"? What do you
> see when you try to boot from a USB drive? What do you see when you
> try to boot from an internal drive? What do you see when you try to
> boot grub from an internal drive then list all drives (including
> external ones) using "ls -l" at the grub shell? What do you see when
> you do the same but loading grub from a USB drive? Video might be
> helpful if possible. Are there any updates available for your BIOS?

Thanks for your reply, Jordon.

The lag is there whether the grub is called from the external usb or 
from the internal SATA disk (to boot the external usb OS). I always have 
grub installed at all disks, internal or external. Clarify this further 
by stating I normally boot the usb OS from internal grub at my desktop 
and boot from external grub at other computers; but the 35 secs lag is 
also there at my own desktop when booting that external OS from either 
internal or external grub.

To explain "before anything kicks in", that means the computer is 
inactive for 35 secs after pressing 'enter' at the grub menu before any 
computer activity light is lit/flickering. Verified that booting the 
same OS installed at internal SATA takes 30 secs compared to 65 secs 
booting the OS installed at the usb.

At grub prompt, 'ls' correctly shows all drives, 'ls' from external grub 
will still show all drives but or course with the numbering (hd0) as the 
usb drive instead.

Using 'ls -l' , sorry forgot how to pipe more|less at grub  :) so the 
output is too fast to record, (will appreciate if you refresh my memory) 
but the typical output for external as follows..

Partition hd2,msdos1 - file system type ext2  label "xxx" UUID 
'xxxxxxxxx' Partition total xxx

Device hd2: not a known file system
           Total size xxxxxxx sectors

[I wonder how Device hd0 (my internal) will look like but output's too 
fast.]


Tried using 'insmod usb' at the menu entry, but same lag there. Also 
tried 'insmod usbms' with similarly no change, but yes, the usb is usb2 
so that is to be expected.

There is a similar bug reported at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/577120

Regards, thanks - Goh Lip