Ubuntu 11.04 Boot Performance Compared To Past Releases

For the Lenovo ThinkPad T60 with its Core Duo T2400 processor, the fastest boot speed under Ubuntu was found with the 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" release with a time of 18 seconds. Ubuntu 9.10 was also the slowest booting release -- similar to the R52 -- with a reported boot time of 63 seconds. With Ubuntu 11.04, the result is not an improvement but a slight slowdown over Ubuntu 10.10. There is though a nice pop in the maximum disk throughput during the Plymouth-enabled boot process with 11.04 Natty Narwhal. The slower Ubuntu 11.04 time may be partially attributed to the start-up of the Unity desktop.

8.04: 26 seconds / 29 MB/s
8.10: 25 seconds / 19 MB/s
9.04: 18 seconds / 36 MB/s
9.10: 63 seconds / 23 MB/s
10.04: 22 seconds / 34 MB/s
10.10: 25 seconds / 34 MB/s
11.04: 27 seconds / 50 MB/s