Panther 10.3.2 and Boot Times [Archive]

wrldwzrd89

Mar 3, 2004, 04:26 PM

I tried the boot time fix for 10.3.2, the one where you create a symbolic link to the BootCacheControl and reboot twice to see the effect. Boy was there an effect! My boot time decreased dramatically: 1 min 30 secs before change, 0 min 30 secs after two reboots! That's three times faster than before! I have a 17" iMac with 512 MB of RAM and a 1.25 GHz processor. Has anyone else here tried this and experienced such a huge decrease in boot time?

<edit> Changed boot time to reflect test results </edit>

johnnyjibbs

Mar 3, 2004, 04:42 PM

15 seconds? Mine was about 2 mins before and 50 seconds afterwards. On a 12" PB 1GHz (rev B) with 768 RAM.

whocares

Mar 3, 2004, 04:56 PM

What's the trick?

My iBook takes forever to boot 10.3.2. :mad:

johnnyjibbs

Mar 3, 2004, 05:01 PM

What's the trick?

My iBook takes forever to boot 10.3.2. :mad:
Open up the terminal and type:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl

(copy an paste this as one line)

Your admin password will be required. Then reboot twice for it to take effect.

I'm no terminal whiz (as in have no clue) but I've been told that this simply moves an invisible file from one place and copies it into your home directory so that your Mac doesn't have to search for it when you boot up (i.e. puts it in the place it normally is, where your Mac searches first). Apparently, Apple accidently put it in the wrong place for 10.3.2.

JDOG_

Mar 3, 2004, 06:44 PM

Johnny,

Thanks for the tip mate. I've been wary to mess with Terminal and the whole boot process, but I'm glad I took a chance on that one. It made my boot time go back to it's superquick 10.3.0 & 10.3.1 times :) Hope they do end up fixing that for everybody else with 10.3.3 though. Cheers.

stevietheb

Mar 3, 2004, 06:50 PM

My iBook boot time went from about 1:15 to 25s. Although, I didn't have a stopwatch handy, so I was just counting using the standard "Mississippi" method.

Neat tip...I have no idea what I did when I typed all that crap in....hope my iBook works tomorrow!

Maritan

Mar 3, 2004, 08:47 PM

That line creates a symbolic link to the BootCacheControl in the sbin folder. Apparently, that's where Panther looks first for the BCC.

Even after I executed this command, my boot time remains "slow". I switched from a Windows system, so 45 seconds is pretty damn quick (down from 1 min 30 seconds). But 15 seconds?!? :eek: Damn, now, I'm pissed. :mad:

haiggy

Mar 3, 2004, 10:08 PM

I too took the risk of trying it out. lol I have no knowledge of the terminal other than a few simple commands so I would have no idea how to reverse this process (if possible). Anyways... the first time I rebooted I counted about a minute on my iBook G4 933 MHz and second reboot was about 30 seconds... maybe next time I reboot it will be faster? :D

abhishekit

Mar 3, 2004, 11:46 PM

Daveman Deluxe

Mar 4, 2004, 01:06 AM

1'15", down from 2'06".

JFreak

Mar 4, 2004, 01:35 AM

to undo
sudo rm /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl
u just remove the file which u copied by that command..:)

symbolic link is "a unix thing" which doesn't mean copying anything - you only make an alias that points to the right place. the actual file stays where it has always been, but you make a new shortcut pointing to it. if you want to undo, you just remove the link you created.

yep - from 90sec to 60sec on 1.25ghz powerbook. counting from power-on to login screen.

cb911

Mar 4, 2004, 01:38 AM

i've been meaning to try that... but i don't re-boot that much anyway. :p

i also remember reading that before you update to 10.3.3 you'll need to undo that change or things might go awry. if you've done the command by copy and paste, it'd be good to save the command, and the undo command in a text file for later reference.

there's also a little app that will run that command for you if you're not confident in Terminal (even though that's half the fun ;)). that same app will also undo the changes when you want to. sorry i don't have a link... but it's called SpeedStart. :)

virividox

Mar 4, 2004, 01:51 AM

yeah this trick is cool, but i dont reboot often so i dont really gt affected by it, only reboots i do is when software update requires one etc.

MacBandit

Mar 4, 2004, 03:04 AM

I tried the boot time fix for 10.3.2, the one where you create a symbolic link to the BootCacheControl and reboot twice to see the effect. Boy was there an effect! My boot time decreased dramatically: 1 min 30 secs before change, 0 min 15 secs after two reboots! That's six times faster than before! I have a 17" iMac with 512 MB of RAM and a 1.25 GHz processor. Has anyone else here tried this and experienced such a huge decrease in boot time?

From what point are you measuring? No Mac period can boot from power button press to finder screen with icons present in under 25secs. The startup hardware test alone takes nearly 10secs.

wrldwzrd89

Mar 4, 2004, 05:06 AM

From what point are you measuring? No Mac period can boot from power button press to finder screen with icons present in under 25secs. The startup hardware test alone takes nearly 10secs.

Yes, you're right about the hardware test. It takes about 15 seconds to complete on my iMac. It spends 10 more seconds on the spinning wheel screen, only 2 seconds (!) for the Mac OS starting up screen, and another 3 for the Mac OS X interface to load. Total = 30.

<edit> Changed boot time to reflect test results </edit>

johnnyjibbs

Mar 4, 2004, 05:53 AM

Yes, you're right about the hardware test. It takes about 8 seconds to complete on my iMac. But it only needs 2 (!) for the Mac OS starting up screen, and another 5 for the Mac OS X interface to load. Total = 15.
Don't know what you've given your Mac (other than that command!) but I'd like mine to have some! Mind you, I never really ever boot up much, but you must keep your Mac very lean.

toughboy

Mar 4, 2004, 06:57 AM

my Jag. boots up like 2 mins or so..

another good reason for me to switch to Panther!..

by the way, they released the Turkish version of Panther few days ago.. anyone know if any european version of panther available? french, or german for instance?

Teronke

Mar 4, 2004, 07:51 AM

Open up the terminal and type:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl

(copy an paste this as one line) ...

Super stuff. Cheers for that. Love this site. It's a great source of info.

One thing to note though is that although my boot time has gone back to 10.3.1 days, 10.3.2 still seems noticeably slower to start functioning after I've entered my password. Any magic unix commands to solve that?????

JFreak

Mar 4, 2004, 07:56 AM

anyone know if any european version of panther available? french, or german for instance?

panther install disc has quite a lot of different localizations and almost every european language is supported. including finnish, which is used by only 5 million people in the world.

wrldwzrd89

Mar 4, 2004, 08:17 AM

Don't know what you've given your Mac (other than that command!) but I'd like mine to have some! Mind you, I never really ever boot up much, but you must keep your Mac very lean.

As far as I know, the only app I have starting up in the background besides Mac OS X services is the Palm Desktop helper, which I don't even use. None of my other third-party apps start up any background services. I also don't have any applications set to launch on startup (and I have auto-login turned on, since I'm the only one that uses my iMac). The time given INCLUDES time spent loading the Finder after automatic login.

<edit> I also don't have Classic starting when I log in.</edit>

toughboy

Mar 4, 2004, 08:44 AM

panther install disc has quite a lot of different localizations and almost every european language is supported. including finnish, which is used by only 5 million people in the world.

I didnt mean supporting.. this is a release changing the whole entire OS..
for example you no longer see File, Edit or Go on the Finder taskbar.. you have Dosya, düzenle, or git instead of them.. or when you open the system prefs, you no longer have Bluetooth, it is Mavidis (the turkish translations)..

I hope I could made it clear..

JFreak

Mar 4, 2004, 08:52 AM

I didnt mean supporting.. this is a release changing the whole entire OS..
for example you no longer see File, Edit or Go on the Finder taskbar.. you have Dosya, düzenle, or git instead of them.. or when you open the system prefs, you no longer have Bluetooth, it is Mavidis (the turkish translations)..

I hope I could made it clear..

by supporting i mean exactly that. you can install many language versions and select your preference in the system preferences' international settings. one user might wish to use finnish (my wife for example) and someone might wish to use swedish (my cousin), and me myself prefer english. it works, by the way, and is easy to configure.

one can (de)select languages during the installation of OS and leaving unnecessary lang packs away saves a great deal of hard drive space.

go apple!

toughboy

Mar 4, 2004, 08:59 AM

by supporting i mean exactly that. you can install many language versions and select your preference in the system preferences' international settings. one user might wish to use finnish (my wife for example) and someone might wish to use swedish (my cousin), and me myself prefer english. it works, by the way, and is easy to configure.

one can (de)select languages during the installation of OS and leaving unnecessary lang packs away saves a great deal of hard drive space.

go apple!

oh thats good.. one more reason for me to upgrade to Panther.. :)

Chappers

Mar 4, 2004, 09:56 AM

When you upgrade Toughboy let me know how you got on. Was the Turkish useful. Also can you remind me about the price of Panther in Turkey.

wrldwzrd89

Mar 4, 2004, 10:00 AM

When you upgrade Toughboy let me know how you got on. Was the Turkish useful. Also can you remind me about the price of Panther in Turkey.

Chappers/Toughboy:

You might want to consider starting a new thread on international Panther upgrades.

GroundLoop

Mar 4, 2004, 10:56 AM

The symbolic link reduced my boot time (power button to login screen) by almost 33% (49 secs vs 1 min 13 secs). Nice little trick. Are there any other little tweaks like this?

Hickman

MacBandit

Mar 4, 2004, 11:28 AM

Yes, you're right about the hardware test. It takes about 8 seconds to complete on my iMac. But it only needs 2 (!) for the Mac OS starting up screen, and another 5 for the Mac OS X interface to load. Total = 15.

I still don't by that. You can't be measuring from the time you push the power button until icons appear on the finder desktop.

wrldwzrd89

Mar 4, 2004, 11:44 AM

I still don't by that. You can't be measuring from the time you push the power button until icons appear on the finder desktop.

You never gave a reason for saying that Macs can't boot in less than 25 seconds; therefore, I have no reason to buy your argument either. By the way, I do not know if it was a one-time thing; I haven't rebooted the iMac since (and measured the time). If you wish, I can repeat the test and report back on the results.

<edit> My timing method was flawed: actual boot time is closer to 30 seconds.</edit>

MacBandit

Mar 4, 2004, 11:54 AM

You never gave a reason for saying that Macs can't boot in less than 25 seconds; therefore, I have no reason to buy your argument either. By the way, I do not know if it was a one-time thing; I haven't rebooted the iMac since (and measured the time). If you wish, I can repeat the test and report back on the results.

Sorry about that. It's not a set in stone measurement. It's just a result of tests by many people over the last 5 years and no machine in that time that I have read about or tested myself has resulted in a sub 25sec boot time.

wrldwzrd89

Mar 4, 2004, 11:59 AM

Sorry about that. It's not a set in stone measurement. It's just a result of tests by many people over the last 5 years and no machine in that time that I have read about or tested myself has resulted in a sub 25sec boot time.

Thanks for that. I will retest and report back on the boot times I get.

<edit> Testing is complete. Here are the results (timed with a stopwatch):
Boot #3: 35 secs
Boot #4: 30 secs

Therefore, I can conlude that MacBandit was correct. My time of 15 secs was timed from screen on to Mac OS load. If I add on 15 secs for power on to screen on, I get the 30-35 sec boot times in my tests. My original timing method was accurate, but flawed.</edit>

GroundLoop

Mar 4, 2004, 12:17 PM

wrldwzrd89

Mar 4, 2004, 02:03 PM

I also believe that 15 seconds is entirely unrealistic. Mine ranges from 45-50 seconds. This is on a PowerBook 1.25GHz, 1GB RAM, on a 5400RPM 80GB HDD. I could prolly shave a few seconds off by not having Apache initializing at start-up as well as pulling out my airport extreme card so that it doesn't try to initialize my network settings. But I would never get anywhere near 15 seconds.

Hickman

You and MacBandit are both correct. See the edit to my above post for 'real' boot times.

<edit> I've now edited all my previous posts in this thread to reflect the real boot time.</edit>

MacBandit

Mar 4, 2004, 05:21 PM

Thanks for that. I will retest and report back on the boot times I get.

<edit> Testing is complete. Here are the results (timed with a stopwatch):
Boot #3: 35 secs
Boot #4: 30 secs

Therefore, I can conlude that MacBandit was correct. My time of 15 secs was timed from screen on to Mac OS load. If I add on 15 secs for power on to screen on, I get the 30-35 sec boot times in my tests. My original timing method was accurate, but flawed.</edit>

Thanks, and congratulations too. 30secs is still incredibly fast but not inconceivable especially on a newer iMac. Something to keep in mind is the more hardware options you have i.e. ram, drives, video cards, airport, bluetooth the longer it will take your machine to perform it's startup hardware test. For this reason even though PowerMacs are traditionally the fastest Macs they do not always have the fastest boot times. My boot times on my Dual/MDD Powermacs have ranged from 28secs to 55secs starting with 10.2 up to 10.3.2. My current startup times are around 40secs but this is without the hack. I tried the hack out for a while and it made a small difference. I reinstalled my system when 10.3.2 came out and decided to not redo the hack as I rarely shut my computer down or restart it and the the difference in any case was hardly worth it.

On machines with slower drives and slower cpus the hack is most definitely worth it as it speeds up the actual system load times through caching which the system is suppose to do by default anyhow. So it's not really a hack but more like a fix.

Makosuke

Mar 4, 2004, 08:25 PM

Woah... tried it on a dual G4 and cut 22 seconds off boot--impressive. Interestingly, the desktop icons seemed to pop up faster after the doc with this applied, but I wonder if that's just placebo at work.

For reference, the breakdown:

End of chime to screen on (Apple monitor): 19 seconds both ways
Screen on to appearance of spinner: 4 seconds both ways

(so far, just hardware testing, so I wouldn't expect that to change)

Spinner appearance to icons: 42 seconds before, 20 seconds after.

So really, it more than doubled the part of the boot that it applies to. And if you don't count the hardware test, that is indeed a roughly 20 second boot for the actual MacOS--quite speedy.

I want to try this with my G5, but I'm always a little paranoid about messing with my home machine. Might just wait for 10.3.3.

Benjamin

Mar 5, 2004, 06:31 AM

generally i don't reboot at all, if i do they always have been under 30 seconds, dvi powerbook.

oh i didn't really read the first post, but i never had to fix this, but yeah i have seen that tip many times.

whocares

Mar 5, 2004, 09:35 AM

Open up the terminal and type:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl

Holy crap! I just got round to trying this now....
From 2'02" down to 54" :D

SumDumGuy

Mar 5, 2004, 01:39 PM

1 min. 33 sec. down to 45 sec.!

Sweet!

HexMonkey

Mar 5, 2004, 04:11 PM

Big improvement here. From about 1:50 to about 0:50 with automatic log in. Breakdown of the times is as follows (b1 and b2 are before the fix, a1..a5 are after):

______Screen on____Blue background___Desktop picture___Icons (done)
b1____0:11_________0:43_______________1:13_____________1:52
b2____0:13_________0:45_______________1:11_____________1:48
a1____0:12_________0:43_______________1:10_____________1:46
a2____0:12_________0:33_______________0:43_____________0:59
a3____0:12_________0:35_______________0:43_____________0:50
a4____0:12_________0:35_______________0:43_____________0:47
a5____0:12_________0:36_______________0:45_____________0:48

TyWahn

Mar 6, 2004, 07:36 PM

MacBandit

Mar 7, 2004, 12:24 AM

i also remember reading that before you update to 10.3.3 you'll need to undo that change or things might go awry. if you've done the command by copy and paste, it'd be good to save the command, and the undo command in a text file for later reference.

Any truth to this??

This fix will only cause a problem if you copied the needed file over. The suggestion that is made here is to make a Symbolic Link which is similar to an alias so even if the original file changes the symbolic link will just link to the new file thus no problem.

blue&whiteman

Mar 7, 2004, 06:39 AM

1'15", down from 2'06".

what the heck do you have your system loading at startup that it took over 2 min to boot? I looked in your profile to see what system you had expecting to see a 233 beige G3 running panther or something and I see you have an ibook 700. must have a really slow HD I guess.

MacBandit

Mar 7, 2004, 04:55 PM

what the heck do you have your system loading at startup that it took over 2 min to boot? I looked in your profile to see what system you had expecting to see a 233 beige G3 running panther or something and I see you have an ibook 700. must have a really slow HD I guess.

All the Apple laptops start up very slowly do to the hard drive. I would be really suspect of anyone posting a sub 1 minute startup with any Powerbook with the OEM drive.

whocares

Mar 7, 2004, 11:52 PM

Well I quoted a 54sec boot time for my iBook, but that's just to login window. I guess an extra 30 seconds are necessary to get desktop, images, a dock. So I'd say 1'30 for boot on my iBook.

toughboy

Mar 8, 2004, 10:42 AM

When you upgrade Toughboy let me know how you got on. Was the Turkish useful. Also can you remind me about the price of Panther in Turkey.

I upgraded to panther yesterday.. A lot of nice features.. I also tried the trick on this thread too, and it dropped my boot to 1:15..

Well the Panther itself does not come with Turkish support, you have to buy it extra, but it does work well, not I can use the Turkish-only letters too..

panther is 99 Euros + tax, which is 120 Euros in Turkey and they charge another 19 Euros for the Turkish pack (which I hope it will be included on 10.4) ofcourse that 19 Euros has another 18% tax which happens to be 23-24 Euros and in total it is like 150 for a whole new operating system.. it is definetly not worth it in my opinion.. but you know, its their way, or the highway.. and I took the highway on my count! ;)