Operating System Startup Times
Operating System Startup Times
Introduction
Here are some of my operating system (OS) startup times. Startup time means from BIOS screen (or from operating system selection screen with multiple operating system computers or from hardware profile selection screen with Windows XP) to OS login screen. Mac Pro is using Extensible Firmware Interface or EFI (which is a successor to BIOS) and that time is included as I can't say from the screen when the EFI has done its stuff and Mac OS is starting. With Windows there are two times: 1) time to login screen, 2) time after logging in until you can actually do something, because all kinds of processes including necessary security software are still starting up and slowing down Windows so much you can't really do anything with it at least with slow computers. See also: Operating System Installation Times, Operating System Requirements, Operating System Settings, Program Installation Times, Driver Installation Times, My computers.
Fedora 13 Desktop Edition (GNOME 2)
Wings desktop computer
- after initial OS installation without updates: 21 s
- after Fedora updates, February 2011: 20 s
- after Fedora updates and after installing about 150 programs: 21 s
SOT desktop computer
- 1 min 0 s
Fedora 15: Xfce 4
Wings desktop computer
- after initial OS installation without updates: 22 s
- after Fedora updates, August 2011: 23 s
SOT desktop computer
- after initial OS installation without updates: 1 min 19 s
- after Fedora updates, August 2011: 1 min 25 s
Fedora 15: LXDE
Wings desktop computer
- after initial OS installation without updates: 19 s
- after Fedora updates, August 2011: -- s
Mac OS X 10.6.6
Mac Pro workstation computer
- 48 s
Mandriva Linux One 2010 (GNOME 2)
FS laptop
- after initial OS installation without updates:
- SSD hard drive: 17 s
- after Mandriva updates, February 2011:
- conventional hard drive: 28 s
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (GNOME 2)
HP laptop
- after initial OS installation without updates:
- conventional hard drive: 20 s
- SSD hard drive: 10 s
- after Ubuntu updates, February 2011:
- conventional hard drive: 22 s
- SSD hard drive: 10 s
- after Ubuntu updates and after installing about 120 programs:
- conventional hard drive: 33 s
Windows XP SP2
FS laptop
- drivers installed, no security software:
- conventional hard drive: 20 s
- SSD hard drive: 11 s
- drivers installed, security software installed:
- conventional hard drive: 26 s
- SSD hard drive: 16 s (only SP2 problem: difficulties turning off ZoneAlarm during Windows shutdown)
HP laptop
- no drivers, no security software:
- conventional hard drive: 14 s
- SSD hard drive: 10 s
- drivers installed, no security software:
- conventional hard drive: 21 s
- SSD hard drive: 22 s
- drivers installed, security software installed:
- conventional hard drive: 21 s
- SSD hard drive: 16 s (only SP2 problem: difficulties turning off ZoneAlarm during Windows shutdown)
Windows XP SP3
FS laptop
- drivers installed, security software installed, SP3 freshly installed, 93 high priority and 100 Windows XP updates listed by Microsoft Update in February 2011:
- conventional hard drive: 32 s + 1 min 15 s = 1 min 47 s
- SSD hard drive: 11 s + 2 min 24 s = 2 min 35 s
- installed: drivers, security software, SP3, February 2011 updates, Microsoft .NET 1.1 SP1, no additional programs installed:
- conventional hard drive: 37 s + 1 min 34 s = 2 min 11 s
- SSD hard drive: 21 s + 2 min 50 s = 3 min 11 s
HP laptop
- drivers installed, security software installed, SP3 freshly installed, 93 high priority and 100 Windows XP updates listed by Microsoft Update in February 2011:
- conventional hard drive: 29 s + 51 s = 1 min 20 s
- SSD hard drive: 19 s + 2 min 51 s = 3 min 10 s
- installed: drivers, security software, SP3, February 2011 updates, Microsoft .NET 1.1 SP1, no additional programs installed:
- conventional hard drive: 30 s + 45 s = 1 min 15 s
- SSD hard drive: 27 s + 3 min 19 s = 3 min 46 s
Windows 7 Ultimate
Wings desktop computer
- after initial OS installation without updates: 22 s
- installed: drivers, security software, SP1, February 2011 updates, no additional programs installed: 29 s + 50 s = 1 min 19 s
Last modified: May 9th, 2013
Author: Tomi Häsä (tomi.hasa@gmail.com)
URL: http://sites.google.com/site/tomihasa/os-startup-times