Linux OS that can boot one of its boards in just 1.69 seconds

Filed in archive on August 30, 2006

Through software optimisations, Technologic Systems said that its TS-7300 ARM based SBC (single board computer) can now boot up to a Linux prompt in just 1.69 seconds after power-up.

Technologic Systems provides a new SD Card image that includes kernel tweaks and tweaks inside the Debian file system itself on partition 3. In addition, fast boot optimisations have also been applied to the TS-SDBOOT boot up firmware that resides in ROM memory, the company said.

The new SD image will look at the state of jumper 6. If jumper 6 is on, the full Debian boot up will be bypassed and the system will instead drop straight to a shell prompt. 1.69 seconds after power-on the serial console prompt is active and 2.41 seconds after power-on the video console is displayed. Video takes a bit longer to start up due to the fact that the FPGA must be initialised, a splash screen is displayed, and USB keyboard kernel modules must be loaded, the company said.

The TS-7300 boot up firmware was designed to be much faster than a x86 PC/SBC BIOS. So even better boot up times can be achieved with an RTOS, such as eCos, instead of Linux, according to Technologic Systems. Of that 1.69 seconds is said to be boot up time, about 1.4 seconds represents Linux bootstrap, while about 0.3 seconds of it is the hardware initialisation.