[coreboot] Success in replicating a fast boot time to the browser on a x60

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Wed, 2 Jul 2014 10:23:45 -0400
Charles Devereaux <coreboot at guylhem.net> wrote:

> Hello
Hi,

> If anyone is interested, I could successfully replicate a similar
> boot time on a debian wheezy, with a "modern" coreboot chain loading
> to grub2, on a x60 tablet running at 1.66 GHz with a cheap SSD :
Great.

I did a simlar setup some time ago for a narrower use case:
I needed extremly fast reflashing times.
I only had:
* A stock parabola(A GNU/Linux distro based on Arch)
* Good kernel commandline(to reduce logging)
* A well configured grub.
* No password at all, even for getty.

>  - I had to add a sleep 3 before starting the web browser with an
> actual site to get the site to load (due to dhcp/wpa_supplicant/etc)
You could gain a lot of time by obtimising DHCP [1].
I've no idea about wpa_supplicant though.

You could also replace the sleep by something better: you could look if
you can get the status of the network connection somehow:
* Maybe trough dbus, but using dbus may slow down the startup.
* Else simply launch the browser with the right arguments once the
  network is there.
  You'll have to find the right arguments for that, so it remains
  usable if the network comes and go.

> I use linux-3.10.45 and systemd-stable v210, and you can see the
> result from a systemd-analyze - about 2.8 seconds after
> coreboot+grub, which take about 3 seconds. Add the delay for the web
> browser and you're good.
How many miliseconds would be saved by putting grub.cfg directly inside
grub's coreboot.cfg?

References:
-----------
[1]http://cafbit.com/entry/rapid_dhcp_or_how_do

Denis.
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