Tim <ignored_mailbox <at> yahoo.com.au> writes: > 2 minutes - it getting ready to start the installation. > 30 minutes - doing the installing. > 20 seconds - its post-install setting/cleaning up, then it reboots (it prompts you, first). > 1.5 minutes - doing its "first boot". > a few moments - me customising things in the first boot process (display, time, etc.). > 10 seconds later, I'm logging in to a fully working system. Then I > downloaded and installed a few other things. The time taken to do the second step can vary a lot depending on the hard drive. On a modern fast machine with a disk with >7200rpm spindle speed and a good disk cache it can be about 20 minutes for the main install - but with an old 5400rpm drive with a lower speed cpu and slower fsb (like one of my old laptops!) it can be 2 hours! In that same laptop buying a new 80GB 7200 rpm drive changed the main install time from 2 hours 15 minutes to about 40 minutes - and the time was the same using CD install or using HD install from an iso image file. In addition it is slower if you have less than optimal amount of RAM. In that same old laptop I added an extra 512MB RAM from the original 256 around the time of FC4 and it also speeded up the machine very noticeably including for the install. Once you reach the end of the list in your posting I always also do a yum update immediately - and if this is soon after a release it is fairly quick, but if it is month after release it can take an hour or more depending on download speed and how fast your system is.
