Long delay at startup

[okok]

While most startup stages happen very quickly even though I am booting from a CD, there is one point when the system hangs for a couple of MINUTES. Here is more or less what the output is:

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copying pup200.sfs to ramdisk
/dev/DVD
setting using_dma ...
using_dma = 1 (on)
ln: /dev/cdrom: File exists
 
*** here nothing happens for almost 2 MINUTES ***

porport: PnPBIOS porport detected
......

The machine I am using is relatively very fast: P4 3.00, 1G ram, X48 DVD/CD.

Any idea what may be causing this very long delay?

[BarryK]

In /etc/rc.d/rc.local0, immediately after the line that links /dev/dvd,
is:

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#autodetect serial mouse and serial modem...
#note, do this before reading /proc/bus/usb/devices as need extra delay.
SERIALSTUFF="`puppyserialdetect 2>/dev/null`" #note, also accessed in rc.network.

maybe try executing 'puppyserialdetect' in a terminal window, see if it
finishes quickly.

[okok]

Yes, puppyserialdetect indeed takes a very long time to finish.

Why is this happening, and can anything be done with it? In case this is of any help, I am using an Asus P5LD2-VM motherboard.

[sci_fi]

Good morning:

I disabled the

#autodetect serial mouse and serial modem...
#note, do this before reading /proc/bus/usb/devices as need extra delay.
SERIALSTUFF="`puppyserialdetect 2>/dev/null`" #note, also accessed in rc.network.

described in an earlier post. This reduced my boot time to aprox. 51 secs. Huge improvement.

Note, I use a laptop with Synaptics toucpad. I also boot with the cheatcode

psmouse.proto=imps.

My touchpad continues to work perfectly. I have not tried this with a regular mouse, however.

Best regards,

sci_fi

[okok]

Thanks, I'll try disabling this line.

But what is it supposed to do exactly and when may it be necessary?

[sci_fi]

I just booted with the serial detect disabled with a wireless mouse (usb) attached. No go. Does not find the mouse. Likely, the section is responsible for auto detection of the mouse (I know, I know, read the comment lines. Yes).

Hopefully, a subsequent release with improve performance and I can eliminate this hack. An maybe even use a regular mouse if I want.

Best Regards,

sci_fi

[okok]

What I wanted to know was whether this will prevent the detection of all USB devices. I'll just try and see.

Thanks for your reply.

[okok]

Commenting out that line solved the problem, without causing any new problem. My USB devices work properly.

[sci_fi]

Thanks, okok. Good to know that other usb devices work properly. I'll give it a go.

sci_fi

[BarryK]

I have no idea why puppyserialdetect hangs. I created the program, but I did it
by cutting code out of a much larger detection program, and I don't know all
the intricacies of how it works.
it is supposed to detect any serial mouse or modem.
Nothing there, it should return immediately.

There is a thread for puppyserialdetect, everyone reported it worked fine.
hence I put it into puppy.

So, I need to put a timeout, so if it hangs, it will get killed after say 2 seconds.

[jonb]

Is there a puppyusbdetect as well in v200 ?
My USB keyboard has never been detected since I started using v107; it always required the borrowing of a serial kbd (does not sit well with others) followed by a fix to sysinit.

[okok]

From my limited experience, modem detecttion or initialization may cause such behaviour.

In an older notebook running win 98, disabling the built-in modem solved a similar delay problem (albeit not that long) which happened while windows was starting.

On my corrent computer, I do in fact have a modem (installed mainly to serve as a fax, but I haven't used it yet), but so far it never caused a noticeable delay with any operating system.

At the moment I do not use this modem, so for my normal use I'll keep that lne commented out, but if you plan to improve this detection program I'd be glad to test it.

[okok]

If the suggestion made on the Developer News page on June 5 to replace

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modem-stats -c "AT" $1 > /tmp/answer.txt

with

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modem-stats -c "ATZ" $1 > /tmp/answer.txt &

in /usr/sbin/modem-wizard was supposed to solve this problem, then on my machine it made no difference. The delay is still there if the line

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SERIALSTUFF="`puppyserialdetect 2>/dev/null`"

is not commented out in /etc/rc.d/rc.local0