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Panther 10.3.2 and Boot Times

wrldwzrd89

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5
Original poster
Jun 6, 2003
12,110
77
Solon, OH
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>
 
whocares said:
What's the trick?

My iBook takes forever to boot 10.3.2. :mad:
Click to expand...
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.
 
WOW!

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.
 
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!
 
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:
 
Thanks!

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
 
haiggy said:
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
Click to expand...
to undo
sudo rm /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl

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

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.
 
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. :)
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
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?
Click to expand...


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.
 
MacBandit said:
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.
Click to expand...

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>
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
WOW!

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?
 
johnnyjibbs said:
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) ...
Click to expand...

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?????
 
toughboy said:
anyone know if any european version of panther available? french, or german for instance?
Click to expand...

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.
 
johnnyjibbs said:
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.
Click to expand...

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>
 
JFreak said:
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.
Click to expand...


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..
 
toughboy said:
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..
Click to expand...

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!
 
JFreak said:
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!
Click to expand...

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

Chappers/Toughboy:

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