From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 11 12:55:04 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E682106566C for ; Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:55:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bms@incunabulum.net) Received: from out3.smtp.messagingengine.com (out3.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.27]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10ABD8FC22 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:55:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bms@incunabulum.net) Received: from compute2.internal (compute2.internal [10.202.2.42]) by out1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60C9516076C; Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:55:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from heartbeat1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by compute2.internal (MEProxy); Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:55:03 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: fWZn2E+LHEfnBso1kFMb5084r4300TY+kxcdcfwhmTEO 1221137703 Received: from empiric.lon.incunabulum.net (82-35-112-254.cable.ubr07.dals.blueyonder.co.uk [82.35.112.254]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B47FA24852; Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:55:02 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <48C91525.10806@incunabulum.net> Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:55:01 +0100 From: Bruce M Simpson User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (X11/20080514) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: FreeBSD stable X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Konstantin Belousov , John Baldwin Subject: Long delays for USB realbtx boot X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:55:04 -0000 Hi, I have hacked NanoBSD locally to deal with generation of images for booting off USB keys. I am using the RELENG_7 branch as real-mode BTX support is necessary to support USB boot. During testing I noticed that whilst the images eventually boot, there is an extremely long delay before doing so, between when the BIOS reads the boot sector and when the BTX loader messages appear. Test system Time ---------------------------- Thinkpad T43 1m 40s ASUS Vintage AH-1 1m 7s Any ideas why this long delay is occuring? I see this with MBR geometries prepared for both USB-HDD (255H/63S/xxC) and USB-ZIP (64H/32S/xxC) modes. I am not using the strict USB-ZIP mode where everything resides on the 4th slice (da0s4) at the moment, as it requires further NanoBSD patches. I am not currently generating images sized to the entire USB key to save space and time, so the cylinder size is smaller than the physical media, this might also be a factor. Thanks for any light you can shed on this. cheers, BMS