[Arm-netbook] Debian boots in 0.87 seconds

[joem]

On Tue, 2014-12-02 at 16:19 +0000, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 3:37 PM, joem <joem at martindale-electric.co.uk> wrote:
> > Debian boots in 0.87 seconds:
> 
>  ... not quite.  they say it boots to a busybox shell in 0.87 seconds,

Good enough to run a program that puts up a background?

> and they can *supply* debian wheezy for it.  they most likely boot
> direct rather than use u-boot.  or if they use u-boot it's also been
> configured to minimal settings.
> 
> > http://linuxgizmos.com/headless-arm9-sbc-boots-linux-in-less-than-one-seconds/
> > http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7250-V2
> >
> > Good if this could be force marched to happen EOMA / Allwinner CPU.
> >
> > A complete world game changer and a lot of funds will get
> > released for dormant projects that need fast boot + linux.
> 
>  it's doable - it's quite a committment in time and effort which i'd
> prefer (personally) to see an advance financial committment matched to
> it.
> 
>  to get any OS (such as debian) to boot very very fast you need to
> make some quite significant modifications.  udev has to go (entirely)
> in favour of a static set of /dev/* entries, for example.  the kernel
> has to be customised to minimise the number of extra pseudo ttys.
> initrd has to go: everything must be in a static monstrously-large
> kernel (which itself becomes problematic as that adversely affects
> load time).
> 
>  so it's a balancing act that has already moved outside of the
> mainstream debian (or other OS) infrastructure and purpose, that then
> needs maintaining.

What about an open sourced script that can do this feat?
Everybody throws in their know how.

>  all of which takes time, hence why i would (personally) like to see
> some up-front payment before committing time to such an idea.

Name a figure.