Re: Slow load time to /boot/loader (3rd stage loader)

2011/10/25 J. Kuczewski <jkuczewski_at_bnl.gov>:
> Hi all,
>
> I have recently installed 9.0-RC1 on my Thinkpad X201 and have noticed
> severe (~20 mins) latency to get to the third stage bootloader
> (/boot/loader). This is system triple booted with Windows 7 and Arch Linux
> using the GRUB 2 bootmanager. FreeBSD is not on a extended partition, if it
> matters. I have tested two BIOS disk configurations, one with AHCI and the
> other with IDE compatibility mode. IDE mode is comparatively faster, but
> still slower than expected (~3 mins). To see if this was a regression, I
> installed 8.2, and it has the same exact effect. Booting off of USB stick
> loads fine (e.g. the installer). The following is my notes with the
> different BIOS configurations with a link to the verbose dmesgs for each...
>
> With AHCI enabled:
>    o  dmesg output:
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/45307545/dmesg_logs/dmesg_ahci.log
>    o  Timeline:
>        ~05 mins - Loading /boot/default/loader.conf appears.
>        ~16 mins - /boot/kernel/kernel <args> displayed.
>        ~20 mins - Welcome to FreeBSD boot prompt.
>
> With IDE compatibility enabled:
>    o  dmesg output:
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/45307545/dmesg_logs/dmesg_ide.log
>    o  Timeline:
>        ~02 mins - Loading /boot/default/loader.conf and /boot/kernel/kernel
> <args> is displayed at once.
>        ~03 mins - Welcome to FreeBSD boot prompt is displayed.
>
> After the boot prompt, startup is normal with no slowdowns to the login
> prompt.
>
> ---
> Current BIOS and ECP versions (output from Linux):
> ---
> # dmidecode -s bios-version
> 6QET52WW (1.22)
> # dmidecode -t 11
> # dmidecode 2.11
> SMBIOS 2.6 present.
>
> Handle 0x0027, DMI type 11, 5 bytes
> OEM Strings
>        String 1: IBM ThinkPad Embedded Controller -[6QHT30WW-1.11    ]-
>
> ---
> FreeBSD GRUB2 entry:
> ---
> menuentry "FreeBSD 9.0-RC1" {
>    insmod ufs2
>    set root=(hd0,3)
>    chainloader +1
> }
>
> Any guidance to determine the slow down of this loading problem would be
> great.
>
> Thank you for your time...
>
> Cheers,
>    -John Kuczewski

i've got something like this. check it out:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-January/054551.html

i remembered this issue when reading your e-mail this morning.
unfortunately i couldn't fix the issue.
just saw the answer from Paulo[1] today (LOL).. but you, John, are
using "the same" entry with grub2.. so.... sadness ;-(

nowadays i'm using 10.0current with my asus 1005pe (eeepc) and
everything runs like a charm. i still have the same pavilion; maybe
one day it will run freebsd again (even if it needs 30min to boot) <3

[1] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-March/055733.html


-- 
Vinícius Zavam
profiles.google.com/egypcio