I'm currently using Fedora 43 KDE and I've noticed that my boot time is significantly slower compared to Windows 10 on the same hardware. It takes about 30 to 35 seconds to get to the login screen, while in Windows it was around 12-13 seconds. During the boot, there are several black screens with a blinking underscore that appear before each step: before the motherboard screen, before the GRUB screen, and even before the login screen. Is this typical for Linux, or is there something I can do to improve boot speed? I've already tried disabling the NetworkManager-wait-online.service, and I've made adjustments in BIOS by disabling CPU virtualization. I also only run a lightweight application like fastfetch at startup. Additionally, if my monitor is turned on during boot, the process gets stuck on a black screen, so I'm curious about ways to handle that too. Here are my specs for reference:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core Processor
- RAM: 16 GB
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
- MOBO: Gigabyte B550M DS3H
- OS installed on an NVMe drive with 23GB /boot and 22GB free.
I even made a video showing the entire boot process if that helps: [View Video](https://drive.google.com/file/d/17nUWdeVNv8PaPhH9fkfr0CNON6IGopOo/view?usp=sharing)
3 Answers
You might want to run "systemd-analyze blame" in your terminal. This will list processes that are taking time during startup, which can help identify the culprits slowing down your boot. Additionally, configuring your power management settings to enable hibernate could be worth exploring, but remember you'll need a swap file for that.
One thing to consider is that Windows isn't actually turning off completely when you shut it down; it goes into a deep sleep mode. This can make the boot process seem faster, but Linux does a full shutdown, which is usually more thorough. So the difference in boot times might not be as surprising as it seems. If you want to speed things up, you could try shortening your GRUB timeout to just a couple of seconds—that should save you a little time at least!
But what if you have Fast Boot disabled in the BIOS? Would that still impact boot times?
There's not an enormous amount you can do to really slash boot times, but using a specific kernel optimized for your hardware could help. If you have unnecessary drivers loading, they can add up and slow things down. Check your boot.log as well—there might be processes you can disable. And about the monitor issue, is it possible you're completely turning off the monitor before starting up? In standby mode, it should still communicate with your GPU.
I had no idea about the deep sleep feature! That's pretty interesting. Is this something you can turn off in Windows?