[kwlug-disc] Decrease boot time

[Paul Nijjar]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 07:17:38AM -0800, Raul Suarez wrote:
> --- On Fri, 12/18/09, Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > Yes. I can do things like this. The question is whether the
> > defaults are sensible. Does showing bootup messages do more harm
> > than good?
> 
> In my humble opinion, they are sensitive.
> 
> Here is why

> It is usually the new users and non-technical users that don't care
> about the boot messages, they don't even understand what they mean.
> If the default was to show them, they would need to find a way to
> turn them off.

I take the opposite view. New users don't need to find a way to shut
off the boot messages. They can let them run without understanding
them. Then when their computer mysteriously stops booting and they
call you to troubleshoot their problem, they have useful information
based on what is on the screen. 

I don't necessarily need that information, because I know how to look
in dmesg, how to boot in single-user mode, how to use Knoppix, etc.
News users have none of these tools. 

New users won't understand what the flow of messages mean, but they
will get used to the sequence of a normal bootup. That will help them
understand what a non-normal bootup looks like. That's useful
information, and I feel uneasy about sacrificing it for eye candy. 

- Paul