Zorin 16 boot slow

Hi. My Zorin 16 boot very slow. About 40s. My hardware is AMD A6 series quad core with 500GB SSD. Don't understand why userspace take about 20s to boot....and when is sleep and login again take a little bit to show desktop. How can I fix that?

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Hello sib73 :slight_smile:

I do not have a solution but my experience is exactly the same as yours. So far I installed it in HP Elitebook (Core i5 + 16 GB Ram) and home-span desktop (Core i7 + 64 GB Ram + GTX 1050Ti). Both installation take much longer to boot/awake than Zorin 15.

Do you have Snap packages installed?
They have been diagnosed as cause of slow boot's in the past.

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Hi, thanks for your advice.

I run $ snap list
which returned:
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
core18 20210507 2066 latest/stable canonical✓ base
gtk-common-themes 0.1-52-gb92ac40 1515 latest/stable canonical✓ -
snapd 2.50 11841 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd

It does not look like I have installed anything myself.

@FrenchPress Ah well, just a thought.
My Z15.3 is a bit slow to boot, but have got used to it. I thought Z16Beta was fast according to some of the Beta users.

Also rediscovered this thread on the old forum:
https://zoringroup.com/forum/5/16000/

Well, it is s a nice thing to know that I am not the only one who is suffering a slow boot :grin:
For someone who came from computing in 80's, I have much tolerance for slow booting. It gives me a time to go to kitchen for morning espresso :coffee:

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Another cause of slow boot is running a load of things at startup.
I am glad to hear that you are not using your machine to heat up your coffee.

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Another cause of slow boot is running a load of things at startup.<<

It is slow after the clean install without anything added to the Startup.

Also rediscovered this thread on the old forum:<<

Thanks to pointing out this thread about a similar phenomenon observed in 15.3. I think I'd rather leave it as is following an old school of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I am glad to hear that you are not using your machine to heat up your coffee.<<

My Pentium machine passed away about 5 years ago - succumbed to its own heating. :hotsprings:

The fact that this thread is labelled "Zorin 16 ..." should attract the attention of the devs @AZorin @zorink looking for feedback on the Beta.

I just sent a comment to developers using a built-in Feedback form. Hopefully it will be fixed by next update.
Other than this minor glitch, Zorin 16 is a perfect OS. It is way better than Windows or macOS which I have been using for several years.

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Is there any update on this issue?

I had a dual-boot install of Win10 & Zorin Core 15.3 on a 500Gb SSD and Zorin would take around 20sec to boot

I formatted my SSD, reinstalled Win10 & the Zorin Core 16 Beta. Zorin 16 Beta takes 3-4 minutes to boot!

systemd-analyze blame always lists dev-sda6.device at the top taking 2-3mins

I've reinstalled Zorin 16 Beta several times now, even with a manually created EXT4 /, /home & swap partitions and always systemd-analyze blame lists dev-sda6.device (or sda4 or sda5 depending on partition setup) as taking minutes.

Why?

How can a clean install of Zorin 15.3 take seconds to boot, whereas Zorin 16 Beta takes minutes?

The likeliest candidate in what you describe is that the Windows partition failed and Zorin (grub) is eventually reaching time-out trying to boot the partition.

Rather than trying to goosechase that; if it was me, I would reinstall both operating systems. At the very least, reinstall Windows.

I'm not too sure what you mean by "Windows partition failed"? Win10 boots okay and Zorin 16 Beta boots okay (eventually). I've reformatted the SSD and a) installed a fresh Win10 Pro b) installed a fresh Zorin 16 Beta (created separate /, /home and swap partitions). It still takes Zorin 16 Beta an age to boot.

The command systemd-analyze critical-path gives:

graphical.target @3min 4.671s
└─multi-user.target @3min 4.670s
└─snapd.service @3min 12.109s +15.926s
└─basic.target @1min 47.109s
└─sockets.target @1min 47.109s
└─snapd.socket @1min 47.107s +1ms
└─sysinit.target @1min 47.097s
└─systemd-backlight@backlight:intel_backlight.service @1min 50.659s +10.746s
└─system-systemd\x2dbacklight.slice @1min 50.657s
└─system.slice @6.095s
└─-.slice @6.095s

And i think this is indicating an issue with device driver for my ASUS X551CA intel backlight - after Googling, there seems to be a lot of issues with this causing slow boots (especially on Ubuntu). I've tried making the edits mentioned here:

and on other websites, but changing grub and the X11 device stuff hasn't made any difference.

I didn't have any problems like this with Zorin 15.3. It booted within 20seconds.

systemd-analyze gives me:

Startup finished in 3.410s (firmware) + 3.711s (loader) + 3.435s (kernel) + 3min 27.618s (userspace) = 3min 38.176s
graphical.target reached after 3min 3.611s in userspace

and systemd-analyze blame gives me:

2min 27.909s dev-sda6.device
1min 10.588s plymouth-quit-wait.service
30.062s systemd-rfkill.service
14.643s user@1000.service
10.576s secureboot-db.service
10.330s systemd-backlight@backlight:intel_backlight.service
9.817s upower.service
9.611s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-609e00f4\x2d17b0\x2d400e\x2d853b\x2d9e29500eba64.service
6.318s networkd-dispatcher.service
5.890s systemd-timesyncd.service
5.818s systemd-resolved.service
5.730s systemd-logind.service
5.604s grub-common.service

So i'm not quite sure where this is telling me all the boot time is going? sda6 is where the / partition is.

I have tried journalctl -b -o short-monotonic to see what the system is spending time doing while it boots. There are 3 sections (pasted below) where there seems to be an inordinate amount of time going, but i'm not clear what these services actually do and why they might be taking a long time:

Section 1:

[ 11.793005] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Starting udev Kernel Device Manager...
[ 11.827158] ASUS-X551CA systemd-journald[289]: Time spent on flushing to /var/log/journal/566f5db5a1c44e7e82177afc4065ba38 is 106.109ms for 974 entri>
[ 11.827158] ASUS-X551CA systemd-journald[289]: System Journal (/var/log/journal/566f5db5a1c44e7e82177afc4065ba38) is 184.0M, max 1.8G, 1.6G free.
[ 12.009226] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Finished Flush Journal to Persistent Storage.
[ 12.524403] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Started udev Kernel Device Manager.
[ 12.528392] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Starting Show Plymouth Boot Screen...
[ 12.577720] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: plymouth-start.service: Succeeded.
[ 12.578114] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Started Show Plymouth Boot Screen.
[ 12.578278] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Dispatch Password Requests to Console Directory Watch being skipped.
[ 12.578596] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Started Forward Password Requests to Plymouth Directory Watch.
[ 12.578790] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Reached target Local Encrypted Volumes.
[ 85.123551] ASUS-X551CA kernel: snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1b.0: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])
[ 85.147140] ASUS-X551CA kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC270: line_outs=1 (0x14/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
[ 85.147143] ASUS-X551CA kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[ 85.147145] ASUS-X551CA kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: hp_outs=1 (0x21/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[ 85.147146] ASUS-X551CA kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: mono: mono_out=0x0
[ 85.147148] ASUS-X551CA kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: inputs:
[ 85.147149] ASUS-X551CA kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek hdaudioC0D0: Mic=0x19

Section 2:

[ 238.012714] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service: Succeeded.
[ 241.567551] ASUS-X551CA PackageKit[1012]: refresh-cache transaction /54_dadccebd from uid 1000 finished with success after 5530ms
[ 251.009934] ASUS-X551CA geoclue[1011]: Service not used for 60 seconds. Shutting down..
[ 251.017561] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: geoclue.service: Succeeded.
[ 252.968858] ASUS-X551CA systemd[557]: Started Application launched by gnome-session-binary.
[ 268.477873] ASUS-X551CA dbus-daemon[575]: [session uid=1000 pid=575] Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.Tracker1': timed out (service_start_>
[ 268.479307] ASUS-X551CA tracker-miner-f[1748]: Could not remove files in volumes: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate>
[ 268.480201] ASUS-X551CA tracker-miner-f[1748]: Could not remove files in volumes: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate>
[ 268.480509] ASUS-X551CA tracker-miner-f[1748]: Could not remove files in volumes: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate>
[ 268.480770] ASUS-X551CA tracker-miner-f[1748]: (Sparql buffer) Error in array-update: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to ac>
[ 268.481049] ASUS-X551CA tracker-miner-f[1748]: Could not execute sparql: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate service >
[ 268.481327] ASUS-X551CA tracker-miner-f[1748]: Could not execute sparql: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate service >
[ 268.481575] ASUS-X551CA tracker-miner-f[1748]: Could not execute sparql: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate service >
[ 313.005788] ASUS-X551CA systemd[557]: Started Application launched by gnome-session-binary.
[ 313.685655] ASUS-X551CA rtkit-daemon[578]: Supervising 5 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
[ 313.693549] ASUS-X551CA rtkit-daemon[578]: Supervising 5 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
[ 318.512409] ASUS-X551CA rtkit-daemon[578]: Supervising 5 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
[ 318.513256] ASUS-X551CA rtkit-daemon[578]: Supervising 5 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
[ 320.473859] ASUS-X551CA rtkit-daemon[578]: Supervising 5 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.

Section 3:

[ 432.960854] ASUS-X551CA systemd[557]: gnome-launched-org.gnome.DejaDup.Monitor.desktop-3700.scope: Succeeded.
[ 546.004800] ASUS-X551CA PackageKit[1012]: daemon quit
[ 546.018959] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: packagekit.service: Succeeded.
[ 590.198869] ASUS-X551CA wpa_supplicant[441]: wlp2s0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with c0:ff:d4:4a:05:c0 [GTK=CCMP]
[ 593.368601] ASUS-X551CA wpa_supplicant[441]: wlp2s0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with c0:ff:d4:4a:05:c0 [GTK=CCMP]
[ 612.926064] ASUS-X551CA wpa_supplicant[441]: wlp2s0: CTRL-EVENT-BEACON-LOSS
[ 632.121843] ASUS-X551CA wpa_supplicant[441]: wlp2s0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with c0:ff:d4:4a:05:c0 [GTK=CCMP]
[ 635.859950] ASUS-X551CA wpa_supplicant[441]: wlp2s0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with c0:ff:d4:4a:05:c0 [GTK=CCMP]
[ 847.001060] ASUS-X551CA NetworkManager[402]: [1625814899.8336] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
[ 847.013238] ASUS-X551CA dbus-daemon[401]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.nm>
[ 847.018079] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Starting Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service...
[ 847.029925] ASUS-X551CA dbus-daemon[401]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher'
[ 847.030336] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Started Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service.
[ 847.422039] ASUS-X551CA NetworkManager[402]: [1625814900.2542] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
[ 858.014964] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service: Succeeded.
[ 915.868559] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Starting Cleanup of Temporary Directories...
[ 916.094099] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service: Succeeded.
[ 916.095091] ASUS-X551CA systemd[1]: Finished Cleanup of Temporary Directories.
[ 968.214403] ASUS-X551CA CRON[3845]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
[ 968.219314] ASUS-X551CA CRON[3846]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
[ 968.221148] ASUS-X551CA CRON[3845]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
[ 1020.929963] ASUS-X551CA dbus-daemon[575]: [session uid=1000 pid=575] Activating service name='org.gnome.gedit' requested by ':1.57' (uid=1000 pid=939>
[ 1020.974242] ASUS-X551CA dbus-daemon[575]: [session uid=1000 pid=575] Successfully activated service 'org.gnome.gedit'

I am sorry to say that everything you have shown so far still points toward the installations on the hardware.

You can see immediately the modules and init on Zorin are not being reached in a timely manner. Reaching the graphical target or multi-user target should be in the range of 20 seconds, at most.

Something is inhibiting access to the drive for Zorins initialization.
Since you completely reinstalled Windows after my previous post- I do not think reinstalling it again will help. Part of the purpose of that is if the Windows 10 Partition does UUID does not match the original partition UUID, Zorin OS will be searching for that UUID before eventually timing out.. If reinstalling did not change that, you may need to check a lot of settings.
Is UEFI Secure Boot enabled?
I think it is a given that Fast Boot is disabled in Windows, but can you please check anyway?

What kernel are you running on Zorin OS?

uname -a

When you installed Zorin, did you format the partition?

Thank you for your expert advice and input - I now have Zorin OS 16 Beta installed and it boots in approx. 30secs.

I'm not entirely sure what the exact problem was, but clearly your analysis of it being partitions and/or installation on the hardware, was correct. Here's what I did:

  1. Booted into BIOS and checked a) FastBoot OFF b) SecureBoot OFF
  2. Booted to existing Win10 installation
  3. Used Disk Manager to delete all my existing Zorin partitions, leaving around 100Gb of 'Unallocated Disk Space'
  4. When Win10 was cleanly installed on the SSD it created a 'Recovery Partition' (sda4). When I originally installed Zorin OS, it gave me the option to "Install alongside Windows Boot Manager" which I chose to do. I think this shrinks the existing Win10 partition (C: drive) and creates its partition from the now 'Unallocated Space'. This (I think) means that the Zorin OS partition becomes sda5 but the space is taken from the Windows C: drive so is physically shown in the disk-map as before the Windows Recovery Partition (sda4). I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I decided to use Windows DISKPART to delete the Windows Recovery Partition (sda4) as I don't really need it (can always reinstall Win10 from ISO).
  5. With the Windows Recovery Partition gone, this left just over 100Gb of unallocated disk space. So I booted the Zorin OS 16 Beta USB and began the installation process.
  6. It gave me the simple option to 'Install Zorin OS alongside Windows Boot Manager' which I chose to do. This doesn't give you any options for formatting or anything, but it does confirm that it will change the disk partitions and that it was going to use the Unallocated Space and create a partition for Zorin using EXT4 (sda4, as the original sda4 Windows Recovery Partition was deleted).
  7. Installation proceeded as normal and Zorin OS 16 Beta now boots in around 30secs

This isn't the right place for this, but I'm going to mention it here whilst I remember & before I find the right place to file this:

One other installation problem I ran into while installing Zorin OS 16 Beta - when you run the 'Install Zorin' immediately on booting from USB, I selected UK & UK keyboard & entered my chosen password (automatically hidden characters). My password happened to contain an '@' symbol, unfortunately the keyboard map (even although I chose UK keyboard) must've still been on US keyboard, because the '@' symbol in my password was actually entered as '"' (double-quote) even though I pressed the @ key on the keyboard. This meant initially I couldn't login, as my keyboard map must've been configured as UK (as I had selected) and I kept typing my set password with an '@' but actually it had been stored during installation with an '"'

I verified this was happening on subsequent reinstallations by pressing the @ key in the name entry box and observing that it was giving me " symbol each time.

If you do not immediately run the Zorin OS installation from USB, but instead 'Try Zorin', then clearly at some point the UK keyboard map is correctly defined and when you subsequently run the 'Install Zorin' process, you get an '@' symbol when you type an '@' on the keyboard.

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@smithbill That is a interesting finding.
I am used to the [@] and ["] symbol substitions, as I unfortunately have a US keyboard on my Zorin laptop but use UK English language. Symbols [#] and [£] are also switched.
I guess the best way to avoid a password trap due to different language keyboard map, is to use a simple alphanumeric only password during install and change it to a stronger password including symbols if desired, once keyboard mapping etc have been finalised.

I usually avoid necromancing :skull: the old thread.
But I just saw this Youtube video (sorry in Japanese only!) of someone got a rack mount server to run Windows on it.

His concision was that the higher end machine needs more time to boot since it has to go through many checking steps than the inexpensive consumer level machine.

I think that explains nicely why my server grade ASUS m/b takes longer to boot Zorin than my consumer grade Gigabyte m/b.

[edit]
For those of you complaining for slow booting time, you should rejoice the fact that you got a high end m/b :stuck_out_tongue:

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