Chris Jones wrote:
Just to throw my 2 cents in, if the machine hangs, sometimes its because it
cannot figure out its own name via name lookup.
I had similar case like yours.
It would hang every time I got so feed up with it I left it on and it
eventually finished booting.
Xwindows would have a similar problem.
I finally figured out that it's the can't figure out its own name problem.
Just to add my own 2 pence ( I'm English....)
If it is the network, and from what you say I'm not sure it is, but if it is
then I found the default network settings not to be particularly appropriate
for a laptop install. For a laptop you *don't* really want the network to
start automatically, since by definition laptops move around and may boot in
an environment where there is no network. If you haven't already try running
system-config-network
and setting your network devices not to start by default (you might also want
to allow non-root users to start the network). Then the machine won't try and
bring the network up whilst booting (and thus wait a very long time if one is
not available).
While you are at it, try looking at NetworkManager. Its an attempt to make
networking easier by automatically detecting available networks and
connecting. Its not perfect yet by any stretch of the imagination but might
work for you...
To simplify things even more, bad reverse DNS lookups can cause a major
slowdown at boot.
If you do NOT have a fixed IP (you're using DHCP) or you use a dialup
network connection, make sure you have a line in /etc/hosts like:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost host.domain.tld host
(replace "host.domain.tld" and "host" with the appropriate stuff for
your machine--but leave the "localhost" bits alone).
If you DO have a fixed IP for the machine, just add a line using that IP
and the machine's host name into /etc/hosts:
www.xxx.yyy.zzz host.domain.tld host
and remove the "host.domain.tld" and "host" stuff from the 127.0.0.1
line.
The idea here is to get the machine to reverse resolve itself off local
files rather than depending on a DNS server somewhere to do it for you.
And if you use DHCP, you had better hope that there's a reverse entry
in someones DNS for the IP it hands you or you'll still take a long
time to boot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -
- VitalStream, Inc. http://www.vitalstream.com -
- -
- A day for firm decisions!!! Well, then again, maybe not! -
----------------------------------------------------------------------
