Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Otoh, linux used to take forever to boot compared to windows, now its speedier than windows.


Not on my machine. Windows 10 takes just a few seconds (fast boot disabled because of dual boot), whereas Linux Mint takes around 20 seconds. Maybe it's because I have many USB devices attached.

It doesn't matter but shutdown matters a lot on dual boot systems, and unfortunately Linux Mint sometimes takes minutes to restart. I believe it's related to systemd and it's very annoying (sometimes I need to switch quickly because I take Zoom calls on Windows).


What machine? I've got a 16GB i7 SurfacePro, seems to take minutes compared to other computers I use.

Windows updates still take hours and still sometimes need multiple reboots vs Kubuntu which updates whilst in use and barely ever needs rebooting.

Having come back to MS Win (for work) after a decade+ away, and with an MS produced computer I was expecting to be blown away by the speed.

Aside: have you tried systemd-analyze blamw, very useful for diagnosing boot slowdowns; https://www.commandlinux.com/man-page/man1/systemd-analyze.1...


It's a 1800x Amd system with 32GB Ram, main partition on SSD, /home on harddisk. Windows updates take minutes, Linux updates are usually even faster (except for upgrades which are much slower than Windows upgrades).

I'll try that analyzer. But I don't think the boot is slowed down, it's just a bit slower than Windows. Shutdown takes minutes, though.


It really depends what is running. By default on Ubuntu at least it has a service that is blocking waiting for a network connection.


Hmm, i dont run ubuntu, but what happens if the wifi is down? That seems exceptionally silly.


It used to be you could hit ctrl-c to stop waiting for dhcp. But last time I ran into that on Debian, you just had to wait for it to give up; of course that was also waiting for dhcp on a wired NIC that wasn't even plugged in.

That was quite a few years ago, I'd hope it got better, but it was one of the things that made me decide to move to FreeBSD.


In 2001 I could go from LILO to idling WindowMaker in 12 seconds, far faster than Win2k or XP or any of the earlier DOS-based Windowses


I agree. Even when Windows has "fast startup" enabled, the time from POST to actual desktop in Linux is still better and has improved significantly, and Windows still has that "tends to go slower as you start to install stuff on it". These days I can usually reach Gnome even before my _monitors_ have had time to boot.


I used to like how KDE could load a session in the background so when you logged in it was ready: for me the post-login takes as long as boot; which makes it annoying.

Not as bad as it used to be when the audio tape failed after 20 mins, but still.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: