Re: Comments on the "Changing the default system shell" talk
On Sun, Jul 26 2009, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 09:48:38AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> I see this asserted a lot. I am pretty sure that the average
>> user very likely does not care. The embedded system folks certainly do
>> --- but I am not sure that the counter assertion that systems will
>> break if /bin/sh is changed under them do not equal in number the
>> people who benefit from small default system shell.
>
> You think the average user doesn't care about getting 50% faster boot
> speeds?
Yes, I do. And it is not just me: I informally took a poll at my
linux users group meeting -- there were 28 people there. And I asked my
realter and friend, and her husband, and daughter, and I asked Judy's
relatives -- and the answer was a blank stare and that no, it was not
important.
Pressed on the issue, they said, oh of course fast boots are
nicer, and instant no delay boot would be great.
Now, where do you get the 50% faster speedup? I seem to recall
a post on this list which reported much more modest speedups, and
pointed to a Debian wiki page which seems to imply average boot time
improvements were of the order of 4% or or? I don't have the reference
handy, though it was mentioned in a list mail recently. What I did find
was:
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/Dash
ehich says 5%, which seems to be in the same ball park.
But, coming back to the survey. The desktop users mostly did
not shut off their machines (cron jobs, nightly windows updates, etc
were often given as reasons). I, personally, reboot my machine a couple
of times every kernel release cycle, so really, I can relate.
Most people with laptops looked at me funny and asked me if I had
heard of sleep mode.
So, with my anecdotal informal survey, no, most users don't give
two hoots about an incremental increase in boot time, especially if the
50% improvement is hyperbole.
manoj
--
Beeping is cute, if you are in the office ;) Alan Cox
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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