12 Lite Suddenly Booting Slow

mdiemer

Fri Sep 15, 2017 1:35:36 am

My Zorin 12 Lite, which had been the fastest-booting OS I ever used, has suddenly started booting very slowly. I haven't timed it, but suffice it to say it is booting about 10 slower than it had been. The only changes I made lately were upgrading Ubuntu Mate from 16.04 to 17.04, which caused the grub menu to be be Ubuntu. I switched it to Zorin using the following commands: sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

That succeed in getting Zorin back in charge of grub, but now what happens is I get the "big Z" screen for much longer than before. It does finally boot OK and all is normal after that.

I should have left well enough alone with Ubuntu Mate 16.04, as now I have a problem with it also, no internet! I'm not saying the upgrade had anything to do with Zorin booting slowly, but it did start right after switching grub back to Zorin.

Swarfendor437

Fri Sep 15, 2017 8:01:28 pm

Can you put things back the way they were and edit GRUB on Mate so that Zorin is the first to boot?

mdiemer

Fri Sep 15, 2017 8:17:45 pm

Good idea, I'll give that a go.

mdiemer

Fri Sep 15, 2017 9:45:15 pm

OK, tried it and no luck. In fact, I got the same message I got awhile back when I was having trouble trying to make Zorin the preferred boot option, vs. Ubuntu Mate: namely, some stuff about blocks, EXT2 vs 4, etc. So I couldn't make Ubuntu the booter. I then used my Boot Repair Disc, and installed Grub all over again. This gave me a slightly older grub version, but it worked, and found Zorin and Ubuntu. It made Zorin the preferred boot option as it is on sda1. Zorin boots as before, slowly. I guess I'll live with it awhile, maybe it will be fixed after an update.

mdiemer

Sat Sep 16, 2017 4:31:44 am

Tried another approach: made LXLE the default boot option. I recently installed it, so it is in good shape. I then booted Zorin from it, and Zorin booted normally (fast). From the other two options (Ubuntu Mate and Zorin), the boot is slow. Of course, having to select Zorin from LXLE's menu slows it down a bit, but still it boots very fast. Incidentally, Ubuntu Mate boots pretty fast also, not much slower than Zorin. LXLE is no slouch either. So as long as LXLE is the default, all three of my systems boot fast. I would prefer having Zorin be the default, but I can live with things as they are now. Now, if I can just resist the urge to install Solus 3...

Swarfendor437

Sun Sep 17, 2017 11:28:32 am

mdiemer wrote:... Now, if I can just resist the urge to install Solus 3...

Yiel! Yield! (= RESIST! RESIST!) :lol:

mdiemer

Sun Sep 17, 2017 9:22:42 pm

HA HA HA!

MBMz10

Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:03:00 am

If you press 'Esc' just after grub has started the boot process you should get text output of the boot process. Sometimes you can see it do something like " a start job is running zxyabc1234 timeout 90 seconds etc, that may help with troubleshooting.

The joys of multiple OS on one machine, I'm guilty of this also :lol:

From memory you usually remove your other drives when installing a new OS, same as I do to avoid any disasters. Something I have done in the past is to set the BIOS (Delete key at start up in my case) to boot my main or daily driver OS and then use the (bios) boot menu (F12 in my case) to boot from the other drives much like if you wanted to boot from a USB. So GRUB on each drive remains independent of the other drives, sort of like removing all drives except the one you want to boot from for this session without having to go into the BIOS each boot and change then save etc.

Only other thing with this is some updates may update GRUB and short circuit all your efforts but guess this is the joy of multiple OS's.
I do recall a time of the machine having no side cover on it so I could just unplug the drives as needed

messy but effective, also running the other OS's from a USB drive but a little slow...

Is there a 12 step program for us

mdiemer

Mon Sep 18, 2017 5:20:15 pm

MBMz10 wrote:If you press 'Esc' just after grub has started the boot process you should get text output of the boot process. Sometimes you can see it do something like " a start job is running zxyabc1234 timeout 90 seconds etc, that may help with troubleshooting.

The joys of multiple OS on one machine, I'm guilty of this also
From memory you usually remove your other drives when installing a new OS, same as I do to avoid any disasters. Something I have done in the past is to set the BIOS (Delete key at start up in my case) to boot my main or daily driver OS and then use the (bios) boot menu (F12 in my case) to boot from the other drives much like if you wanted to boot from a USB. So GRUB on each drive remains independent of the other drives, sort of like removing all drives except the one you want to boot from for this session without having to go into the BIOS each boot and change then save etc.

Only other thing with this is some updates may update GRUB and short circuit all your efforts but guess this is the joy of multiple OS's.
I do recall a time of the machine having no side cover on it so I could just unplug the drives as needed messy but effective, also running the other OS's from a USB drive but a little slow...

Is there a 12 step program for us

HA HA, Not aware of any 12 step programs from multiple OS addicts, but maybe there should be one. But it does help with boredom, which worsens as one gets older. Yes, I usually disconnect all but the target drives. Even though it's perfectly straightforward to examine the setup of drives and partitions on the "do something else" option, it's always possible to have a major brain fart, so I agree it's a good idea. I also do the other thing you mentioned, involving bios and boot options, but it's also nice to have your daily OS ((Zorin, of course) be able to select any of your OS's from grub. In my case, right now the only grub that will boot Zorin quickly is LXLE. Not sure, why. It could have something to do with updates, as you suggested.

MBMz10

Tue Sep 19, 2017 3:22:43 am

So do they all boot at normal speed now or just Zorin? Or is it just what is on the same drive as Zorin?
If you resized any partitions might have corrupted the file table or such giving errors, try pressing "Esc" after boot begins on those OS's and see if any output give clues. Maybe some file table fixer (fdisk??) could help but starting to get beyond my knowledge at this point.

At least when you break something you have something to fix and the learning that comes with that! Food for thought.
I had a HDD that I thought was dead as it is about 10 years old and did a 'replace with zeros' slow format and now it is working again, very satisfying.

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