Hello and merry Christmas,
For x60 owners who want to experiment with a very fast boot, I've prepared as a xmas present a minimal debian distribution that implements every idea I posted before, including a brand new systemd to help a bit more with DHCP requests time.
It's currently available on: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hyzjfbehqy58y5g/attempt.tgz?dl=0 (If you've a suggestion to host ~200 to 500Mb tarballs, please tell me!)
Booting to X is not included in this release since I'm still trying to optimize a few things related to the wacom driver taking way too much time (log attached). It currently takes about 1.2s more, while the target is 0.5s.
To install it, simply format a partition in the filesystem of your choice (I suggest XFS), mount it as /attempt, unpack the tarball, edit attempt/etc/fstab to match the device and filesystem.
To boot it, add to your grub.cfg (here for /dev/sda3 i.e. ahci0,3): menuentry '1: Debian GNU/Linux coreboot systemd' { set root=(ahci0,3) linux /kernel/bzImage libahci.ignore_sss=1 raid=noautodetect i915.lvds_downclock=1 i915.i915_enable_rc6=7 nohz=on nmi_watchdog=0 thinkpad_acpi.brightness_enable=0 thinkpad_acpi.force_load=1 thinkpad_acpi.fan_control=1 snd-hda-intel.index=0 snd_hda_intel.power_save=10 snd_hda_intel.model=thinkpad snd-hda-intel.probe_mask=0x103 snd-pcsp.index=1 btusb.reset=1 ath9k.ps_enable=1 ath9k.btcoex_enable=1 i915.fastboot=1 pcie=aspm pcie_aspm.policy=powersave tpm_tis.force=1 tpm_tis.interrupts=0 tpm_tis.hid=PNP0C31 quiet root=/dev/sda3 systemd.unit=graphical.target }
Step-by-step intructions to replicate that debian jessie + vanilla systemd have been posted on http://en.blog.guylhem.net/post/106153399669/how-to-recreate-the-x60-coreboo...
Presently, booting to the command-line takes about 1.3s (kernel + system) as tested with systemd-analyze:
Startup finished in 763ms (kernel) + 579ms (userspace) = 1.343s
In both cases, the net is available very quickly thanks to systemd starting wpa_supplicant as soon as the ath9k is initialized, but this is still a limiting factor as you need to wait an additional 1.3s to have a usable connection. I'm still working on that. It may need native wpa support within systemd to be really improved, which may happen someday.
From the dmesg:
[ 1.496135] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready [ 2.652574] wlan0: authenticate with 00:11:22:33:44:55 [ 2.667119] wlan0: send auth to 00:11:22:33:44:55 (try 1/3) [ 2.669174] wlan0: authenticated [ 2.669280] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlan0: disabling HT as WMM/QoS is not supported by the AP [ 2.669285] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlan0: disabling VHT as WMM/QoS is not supported by the AP [ 2.670064] wlan0: associate with 00:11:22:33:44:55 (try 1/3) [ 2.672618] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:11:22:33:44:55 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=5) [ 2.672680] wlan0: associated [ 2.672704] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
Still, anyone can now have a debian jessie booting decently fast on a x60. When the X fixups are done, I'll try to make a youtube video demonstrating how fast boot can be.
I'm now wondering about how to make coreboot boot faster. Suggestions are welcome.
Enjoy! Charles