Scheduled Maintenance: We are aware of an issue with Google, AOL, and Yahoo services as email providers which are blocking new registrations. We are trying to fix the issue and we have several internal and external support tickets in process to resolve the issue. Please see: viewtopic.php?t=158230

 

 

 

Almost/practically silent boot in Debian 9 Stretch

Share your HowTo, Documentation, Tips and Tricks. Not for support questions!.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Fernando Negro
Posts: 124
Joined: 2013-11-24 01:29
Location: Portugal
Has thanked: 2 times

Almost/practically silent boot in Debian 9 Stretch

#1 Post by Fernando Negro »

Combining the information from here and elsewhere on the Internet, I was able to make two of my Debian-powered computers have an almost/practically silent boot (besides the initial blinking cursor, after GRUB finishes executing) - with the situation being only that, (1) on my faster desktop computer I almost always get a blinking cursor before the display/login manager starts, and (2) on my older/slower laptop computer I almost never see a blinking cursor (with the boot process being actually silent).

Note 1: This works with the radeon driver, and with the proprietary NVIDIA driver. But, with nouveau installed, unless you use the "nomodeset" parameter in GRUB, and get a lower screen resolution because of that, you'll get an irritating red symbol, that I couldn't get rid of (https://pasteboard.co/GE6RPlp.jpg) - apparently signalling(?) that the result of the "fsck" process was OK (even if I disabled "fsck" at boot, and the output of any messages)...

Note 2: Disabling "fsck" (file system consistency check) at boot, means your computer won't be scanned for any hard drive errors when you boot. Also, disabling the output of messages at boot, means that you won't receive some of them. Therefore, use these instructions at your own risk.

So, what you have to do, is only to add the following parameters in GRUB, to your "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT" line (by editing, as root, the file "/etc/default/grub" - and, not forgetting to run, as root, "update-grub" afterwards) so that it changes from this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
to this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet loglevel=3 fsck.mode=skip vt.global_cursor_default=0"
(Or, alternatively, you can substitute "fsck.mode=skip" for "fastboot".)

Explaining what the parameters do:

1) "loglevel=3" gets boot rid of any unimportant error messages (like when it complains about the absence of a proprietary firmware that you don't need).

2) "fsck.mode=skip" makes the boot process skip the "fsck" part (while "fastboot" might do something more than that(?)).

3) "vt.global_cursor_default=0" gets boot rid of the blinking cursor (but, for some reason, not at the part right before the display/login manager starts).

And, that's the best that I could find out, and do... If anyone can do better than this - like patching GRUB so that it doesn't show up at all, like in Ubuntu - please let us know how to do it. Happy hacking.
I just *love* the stability, much more bug-free nature, and modular installation options of Debian. Apart from the unfortunate adoption of "systemd" (viewtopic.php?f=20&t=129881&start=165#p671030) this distribution is *great*.

User avatar
Fernando Negro
Posts: 124
Joined: 2013-11-24 01:29
Location: Portugal
Has thanked: 2 times

Re: Almost/practically silent boot in Debian 9 Stretch

#2 Post by Fernando Negro »

And, just some extra information...

On my desktop computer, I'm using LightDM as my login manager. And, on my old laptop computer, I'm using SLiM.

So, you should get different (cursor blinking, before the login manager starts) results, depending on the combination of login manager chosen and (fast/slow) computer used.
I just *love* the stability, much more bug-free nature, and modular installation options of Debian. Apart from the unfortunate adoption of "systemd" (viewtopic.php?f=20&t=129881&start=165#p671030) this distribution is *great*.

Post Reply