Reducing Boot Time On a General Linux Distro 354
Linzer writes "In this blog entry, Fred Crozat (head of Mandriva's engineering team in France) explains in great detail how his team has been detecting and getting rid of bottlenecks in the boot process, from the early stages to loading the desktop environment, thus decreasing overall boot time. An informative tour of the nuts and bolts of the boot process and how they can be tinkered with: initrd, initscripts, udev, modprobe calls. The basic tool they use for performance analysis is bootchart, which produces a map of process information and resource utilization during boot. The final trick: preloading desktop environment files while waiting for the user to type her password."
Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people power down their computers at night.
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My USB ports fail after being idle for too long (on my desktop). Since I have a USB mouse, I have to reboot. Yes, it's a Linux/Ubuntu problem (no problem in Windows, but I usually use Linux), and yes, I'm sure it can be fixed, I just haven't had tinker time in a while.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to have that problem. Drove me bananas. The problem wasn't fixed until I got a new computer. I did find a slightly better solution than rebooting, though. I used to keep a CLI window up. If the mouse failed, I'd unload the USBHID kernel modules, then reload them. I don't remember which modules in specific, but it did provide relief without rebooting.
Unfortunately, this was a fairly common issue with the Linux kernel. There was little interest in fixing it at the time, so you may just need new hardware. (It's possible that the issue was ignored because it was caused by poor USB implementations. Which would hopefully mean that newer hardware is unaffected.)
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the cheapest solution is a $10 usb 2.0 controller. http://www1.pricewatch.com/public/info2.aspx?i=44&z=2988&ro=2&aid=32983822&u=http%3A%2F%2F3btech.net%2Fadaufopousb2.html [pricewatch.com]
since the motherboards usb is buggy, this $10 fix will solve the problem.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's so buggy that Windows doesn't have a problem with it.
Seriously, I'm a huge Linux fan, I use it at work, I use it at home, I'm using it right now... but that's just ridiculous.
I don't have to keep a shell window open, as there are hot keys enough to get one (I don't reboot by hitting the button), but I'm not about to spend a penny on something Windows can handle just because Linux can't.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Informative)
The usb implementation is buggy. They threw in enough fixes till it roughly worked on Windows and then it was considered good enough to ship. That's why it doesn't work on Linux. I'm just wondering how you don't know this already. Surely you've heard of this happening before?
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, who does the average user blame? Their hardware or Linux? There is a certain threshold beyond which arguing is pointless. If something doesn't work, you're not hurting anyone except yourself by trying to deflect blame. (Rightly or not.) As a developer myself, that's a lesson I had to learn long ago.
Just some food for thought.
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and sometimes, the motherboard bios itself loads buggy tables when it 'detects' linux rather than using the same tables it uses for windows. causing all manner of stability problems and issues. some companies just don't care if their motherboard runs linux, they might even be taking money to make linux look bad from microsoft.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:4, Informative)
The Linux developers doing the bulk of the work are paid.
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***They threw in enough fixes till it roughly worked on Windows and then it was considered good enough to ship.***
Yep, that's the zen of USB. In the 1990s there was a competing school of thought that said you ship after three months whether it works on Windows or not.
Sounds like broken USB autosuspend (Score:4, Informative)
On Linux usb ports can be powered down to save power. However it turns out that many USB devices are broken and can't cope with being powered down. Now the question comes up what version of Linux are you using? If it's something older than 6 months then there's a good chance this has been fixed (the list of things allowed to be powered down has gone from a blacklist to a whitelist of large categories). See this commit talking about the kernel no longer powering anything down bar USB hubs [kernel.org] for some more details.
A very short term band aid might be to disable usb autosuspend on that device via /sys/ [debian.org].
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Funny)
How can they sleep without the soothing fan noise?
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Funny)
I have fanless computers, you insensitive clod!
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Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, a Cobalt Qube [wikipedia.org] with no fan because it runs cool enough to not need it. It does a fine job of powering IPCop [ipcop.org] on its old 250mhz MIPS processor, providing a firewall, SQUID, and NAT for the house, and only using a handful of watts while doing it.
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My computer stays on, in the living room. My bedroom contains exactly three things that use electricity. The alarm clock, the waterbed heater, and the ceiling fan/light fixture.
Some people power down their computers at night.
How can they sleep without the soothing fan noise?
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Funny)
My bedroom contains exactly three things that use electricity. The alarm clock, the waterbed heater, and the ceiling fan/light fixture.
So, what the wife uses is ... battery-powered?
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:4, Funny)
There is no wife/girlfriend, thankyouverymuch.
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Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Funny)
You just call in a contractor as the project requires, eh?
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Funny)
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You insensitive clod.
for the energy cost/environmentally conscious.. (Score:2)
Just be sure not to use crappy software/hardware that doesn't support it.
ACPI whitelist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just be sure not to use crappy software/hardware that doesn't support [sleep].
And pay multiple times over for return shipping when I find that one or more components of my computer don't come out of sleep properly. Or do you know of a good whitelist of makes and models of commodity PC hardware that have the fewest defects in their ACPI implementation?
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"Actually hibernation saves time and energy due to shorter boot times."
Explanation needed. hibernation may save a few seconds (if you compress the image on suspend) but otherwise a clean boot may well be faster as less disk reads are needed.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
If their default linux setup doesn't complete boot-up before their finish their morning piss they have a problem that no guide will fix :-)
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Some people hibernate their computers at night.
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Is there a pre-.... position missing here?
I'm trying to figure:
Some people hibernate IN their computers at night.
Some people hibernate ON their computers at night.
Some people hibernate UNDER their computers at night.
Some people hibernate WITH their computers at night.
Is there a Borg in the house?
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes you are unusual.
I shut down my work PC when I leave at night. I shut down my laptop when I put it back into the case.
Netbooks are also shutdown when you put them away.
Even you might shutdown your PC to save some power if it didn't take very long to power it back up.
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I shut down my laptop when I put it back into the case.
Why not use s2disk?
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probably habit more than anything. Plus it is a duel boot so sometimes I jump over to Windows to play FS9
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Funny)
To the death or will first blood satisfy the honor of these OS's? And do the cellphone and PDA act as seconds?
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why use s2disk?
kde (and theres probably a gnome tool too) can save active windows, so whats the benefit in s2disk?
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Shorter boot time. With s2disk you don't have to wait for the bios to POST, for the kernel to probe your devices, etc. Also, how well does this kde feature deal with terminal windows? If I'm editing something in vi in a terminal, is KDE smart enough to reopen the terminal window and start vi with the cursor right where I left it with my history and everything intact? I'd be amazed if it were.
s2disk works very very well, at least on my laptop. It's the right tool for this purpose.
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I shut down my work PC when I leave at night.
I'm probably not at all typical, but I need to keep my work PC on so I can remote into it if clients call with problems after-hours. Or even if it turns out I need to call in sick, but still get at some of my files.
I shut down my laptop when I put it back into the case.
Uh, laptops have sleep mode and suspend. I can't imagine why anybody would ever shutdown a laptop unless they were going on vacation and not bringing it along. Or selling it, maybe.
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I agree...
Maybe if I used a laptop it would be different.. but as it stands I only reboot my computer when I upgrade my kernel (which isn't often).
What I have noticed is distro's like Gentoo boot fast because the user starts from the ground up and adds only the services they need. A default install of Debian comes with a large number of services that your average user probably doesn't need.. and probably slow the boot process.
That's not to say Gentoo is necessarily better.. I recently decided to give Debian
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But in all seriousness.. my desktop also acts as a small web server. Not enough traffic to justify a separate box.. but enough that it can`t be down for several hours every day. Additionally I use my computer so frequently (yes I`m a true geek... if I get up in the middle of the night I`ll often check email/see whats happening on IRC.. and I tend to shell in from work frequently) that it just doesn't make sense to shut the thing down.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
dditionally I use my computer so frequently (yes I`m a true geek... if I get up in the middle of the night I`ll often check email/see whats happening on IRC.. and I tend to shell in from work frequently)
And wouldn't that be exactly the point in reducing boot times? I shut down at night, but would be shut down more often if I could have my PC up and available in under ten seconds.
And P.S. getting on to check your email in the middle of the night isn't the sign of a true geek. It is borderline obsessive :).
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(Hopefully) not a lot when using it as a server.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That makes sense, but there is using a PC and using a PC.
My main desktop machine I leave on 24x7. I might not be logged into it, but it is used to create off-site backups of some remote servers.
So while it isn't being used by me directly, it has a job to do during the nights it is left running.
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On or from a desktop?
If so, check out your BIOS to have the PC wake itself up in the middle of the night, just before your scheduled jobs kick off. Make the last scheduled job power the machine off and your problem is solved.
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So, by leaving my computer on, I am helping.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, even when you are indeed helping solve whatever problem you choose to participate in, in reality the design of those projects is to take advantage of the unused cycles of a PC while doing its "regular" scheduled work. That is, to maximize the usage of the PC.
By leaving your computer on only because of the @home projects you are doing the opposite, ie. not maximixing PC usage, because you are indeed "creating unused cycles" for idle time work. I see it like trying to maximize the electricity use at home by running a garbage-burning generator (just for the sake of the example), and then "creating" garbage on purpose just to "take advantage" of it. That's not really what the original intent of the generator was and thus is not maximizing anything.
Of course in the end it's your choice, just maybe something you could think about from a different perspective.
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The more environmentalists tell me what the do, the more I do the opposite just out of spite. :P
More seriously, though, my backup software (Mozy.com) runs overnight. If I turned off my PC, it'd never get backed-up. Plus Folder Sync requires both computers to be on to get synched correctly, so my laptop wouldn't get synced if my desktop was turned off.
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Yes, but the main point is that I still resent environmentalist weenies telling me what to do with my life. I don't tell them what to do, so they should kindly shut the hell up and let me do what I want. Ok?
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You're probably right, but the matter is much more complex than you make it sound. The problem is that turning a computer on and off causes thermal stress and other undesirable things that affect the lifespan of your computer. Therefore, on average, turning off a computer each night will shorten its lifespan. Since manufacturing, transporting and recycling a computer costs lots of energy, this should be taken into account when determining whether turning a computer off is really good for the environment.
Apa
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I'm sure they have, I'm sure some of them have tried it, and I'm also more than certain that only a small portion of those people got it to work correctly - which means that all services, networks, wireless, etc, are restored correctly upon waking up.
Unless they were using Macs, where I'm sure that 95%+ of such people have never had problems with sleep or hibernate working correctly.
Broken ACPI (Score:2)
Has no one here heard of hibernate or sleep?
It appears Acer's testers haven't. My cousin tells me his Acer Aspire One subnotebook running Windows XP Home comes out of sleep with some hardware not properly awake.
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I would except in Vista it takes a couple minutes to go into and out of hibernate. Booting is actually must faster. I think this is because I have 4 gigs of ram. My wife's laptop with only 2 gigs is much faster at hibernating. Linux used to be quite quick in the hibernation department, but I've been testing out Ubuntu Intrepid and hibernate stopped working correctly for me.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fast boot laptops would be a nice feature. On the server side look at Sun's SMF of Solaris 10. It boots many services in parallel. Not only does this decrease boot time but SMF knows the depencies of all services. This is useful when troubleshooting a failed service. I'd like to see this in Linux.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes! We will call it... Upstart! Oh wait.
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Gentoo's init system is like this (and has been for quite a while). It doesn't do stuff in parallel by default, but I think there is an option to enable that.
I think I remember hearing something about Ubuntu and/or Debian also trying to create something like that, as well.
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Informative)
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how often does someone reboot a Linux box, that this even enters into it?
I guess you don't own a Linux laptop.
Linux laptops (Score:2)
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I agree with you, but for some reason that's a hugely important metric that commenter, reviewers, and Slashdot posters pay attention to when new OS releases happen. So it's important from a PR standpoint, if for no other reason-- the real news here is that anybody using Linux has any conception of things that are important from a PR standpoint.
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A lot of people shut down and restart regularly.
Unless your box is actually doing something useful overnight, you're wasting a lot of power leaving it switched on all the time. Never mind the tree-hugger angle, that's costing you money.
If you look at it in a logical way - how much of the time spent using a computer is spent booting - no, it's not important at all. Optimizing almost anything else is more efficient. However, people aren't logical. People tend to place more emphasis on time spent waiting for t
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless your box is actually doing something useful overnight, you're wasting a lot of power leaving it switched on all the time. Never mind the tree-hugger angle, that's costing you money.
We've had various low power/sleep/hibernate modes available for _years_ now, I think we should work on getting those features working more reliably under Linux than telling users to change their ways to suit Linux's lack of progress. For that matter, just change the fucking boot process already, see every other modern OS for examples. Solaris, Mac OS X, Vista.. and I'm sure there are others who also moved on from crusty linear execution of shell scripts.
This is typical Linux-speak.. "It's not broke/missing, you should change."
Go ask someone with a Mac what his boot time is. "You mean you turn yours off?"
Try hibernating a Mac laptop. Don't know how? Close lid. Wait less than 5 seconds for blinky light. Unplug power and rip out battery. Yes, it hibernates that quick, and it's automatic.
iMacs, desktop systems mind you, default to standby mode after 10 minutes idle. It's even smart enough to not standby a system that's streaming music or sharing files, it'll just standby when the connections are closed. OS X's suspend/resume is the most reliable out there. True, it's because of the tight integration with Apple hardware, that's what you pay for. Linux and Microsoft are at a slight disadvantage, but that's the open PC market for you, love it or hate it.
Apple has paid particular attention to this area, but you might even learn a thing or two by looking at Vista's power saving modes. Also, Solaris has a nice streamlined boot process and replaced much of their old init stuff, you might want to check that out.
The Linux community can't just tell it's users to change any more, there are many alternatives, and I wouldn't say anyone is asleep at the wheel anymore. It's not just Linux vs. big sleeping giant Microsoft anymore like many of you thought around 2000. There's much more out there than Windows, and even that improves leaps and bounds every generation. Linux has hurt many traditional UNIX systems, and I can think of a big one that isn't going to (and doesn't have to) cave in to Linux. Than there's Apple, which frankly, Linux can't hold a freaking candle to, but anyone who really wants Linux to succeed on the desktop needs to pay close attention to them.
However, people aren't logical. People tend to place more emphasis on time spent waiting for the system to boot than a lot of other bottlenecks. You can argue about the reasons for this, it's an interesting psychological debate, but the fact is that it's true. Boot speed has a big psychological effect on how fast people think a system is. So, it's a good idea to optimize it.
Logic, schmogic, are you going to let every other system outperform Linux (in the eyes of the users, or however you want to put it) because you think your users have an illogical desire for a faster booting system? Are you trying to cleverly say you're right, users are wrong, but you'll appease them anyway? Yah, that's a nice twist on "customers are always right." The customer is wrong, but I'll do it anyway because they're stupid. That's a winning attitude. This is why Linux has so much trouble.
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I run linux on a laptop. Boot and shutdown times are very important when you want to start using the computer *right now* to google something/show someone a picture/remote into a server and restart apache/etc. Or in a server environment, if I do have to reboot a server, I want it to come back up as fast as possible to minimize downtime and to confirm that it's not stalled at a console prompt. Reducing perceived boot time is critical to linux' success on the desktop, and doesn't hurt at all in a server s
Re:Interesting but how useful, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
This response illustrates a phenomenon my friends in the business refer to as:
"More friendly advice from the helpful Linux community"
Other examples include:
"Did you read the documentation?" - Ah, usually offered in response to your post that the documentation didn't help...
"If you don't understand this, you shouldn't be doing this" - Yes, that exaplains why Linux is so often touted as a great way to learn stuff.
"Did you try reinstalling?" - When not offered in response to your question which includes describing repeated installations, it is offered as a rational first step, especially to kernel problems...
"You should be using {insert other distro name here}, {insert your ditro name here} sucks" - You can count on this response immediately after a distro update, though it is also offered when you use a distro that is not one of the top 2...
"Can you give us your {insert all manner of filenames here}?" - usually asked for in response to problems that cause panics, but also offered for problems that do, after much investigation, not have any logs. Like games.
Sorry, but I had to blurt out another "this is not helpful" response. The fact is, some Linux machines do actually get shutdown, and for valid reasons. And the question presupposes that shutdown is a given, since the question was about startup...
But I get where you're coming from. Many Linux users have no concept of the conditions and uses that other Linux users work within. None whatsoever.
I rarely post helpful advice to Linux questions, mostly cause I don't have answers, but when I do I try to actually be helpful. And I usually try to be polite to those who aren't. But I slip now and then...
It's not quite as bad as Windows advice, which varies from "reboot" to "reinstall" to "post your hijackthis logs". You have to cultivate excellent technical sites for good advice, and give back when you can.
Oh, wait. this is /. after all... nevermind.
Link to powerpoint presentation (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a poweropint presentation about this work [fenrus.org]. If you're an LWN subscriber you can you read an article and comments about the 5 second boot presentation [lwn.net] at the Linux Plumbers Conference (it will become viewable by all on from the 2nd October 2008). Finally you might be able to test drive some of this work if you are willing to sacrifice a USB key and destroy your existing EeePC install by because Moblin may include this work [moblin.org].
her? (Score:5, Funny)
A female Linux user?!? You can compile and install Gentoo while waiting for that to happen. : p
Re:her? (Score:5, Funny)
A female Linux user?!? You can compile and install Gentoo while waiting for that to happen. : p
Hey! I thought I was a real woman (and people with your point of view were extinct by now)
--
laura.
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Hey! I thought I was a real woman (and people with your point of view were extinct by now)
--
laura.
Pics or you didn't happen.
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Actually my wife uses Linux. So yes a Slashdot user that is married to a woman that uses Linux.
howto? (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldn't care less (Score:2, Funny)
I am sure both Mandriva users will be very happy.
Laptops (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it helps if it's installed on a laptop or on old hardware.
Also it goes to quicker recovery time in case of outages. Coming from the Solaris world before they had journaling UFS filesystem it could take hours to FSCK a large partition before the OS would come up. On a production system that is a big deal.
It's not Linux that's slow (Score:3, Interesting)
On my systems, it's the BIOS that takes a very large chunk of the overall boot time. As far as it goes, I think the Core2 machine takes about the same amount of time to start loading the OS as the old 486 used to.
Having an x86_64 architecture is nice, but why oh why are we still lumbered with that legacy piece of you-know-what? I think I want a Mac Mini now, just because of that...!
-- Steve
Nice Try! (Score:4, Funny)
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Agree. Since Vista SP1 supports EFI boot now, maybe in a few years most consumer computers will switch to EFI instead of BIOS.
Meantime, I wish Coreboot (formerly LinuxBIOS) worked on more motherboards. :-(
Re:It's not Linux that's slow (Score:4, Interesting)
Too bad coreboot [coreboot.org] doesn't run on any of my motherboards. Imagine having a busybox terminal ready to go before the LCD monitor powers up.
Many modern x86 laptops have faster BIOSes (Score:3, Interesting)
While servers still seem to take hours to get past their BIOSes, modern laptops often have options for skipping the POST and generally taking shortcuts enumerating devices. The EeePC has a "BootBooster" option where it caches BIOSes results to solid state disk so the BIOS finishes in less than a second (rather than 4 or 5). It is so fast it can be a pain when you actually DO want to change a BIOS option!
POST (Score:5, Insightful)
My problem is not the linux distro coming up to a login prompt, but the server getting past all the cards prompts to get to the normal boot. What with scsi controller cards having their own bios, the system bios, and miscellaneous others, it can take longer to get past the post then to boot linux. The HP DL360 G5's we have can take almost 30 seconds just to starting booting the linux kernel.
password (Score:2, Funny)
My password is just the letter 'a'. Like in 'apple'. No luck for me then.
why bother with booting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just get hibernate to work well and do that?
There is a lot of CPU chewed in the booting process and you can only do so much to speed it up.
This is useful for Linux Instances (Score:2)
They will come online faster.
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Really? English is not my first language, so my intuition may be wrong, but since it basically replaces "the user's" (singular!), "his" or "her" make more sense to me than "their".
Re:OT Grammar Nazi comment (Score:4, Interesting)
The use of "they" as a singular pronoun [wikipedia.org] is by no means universally accepted.
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And from your link:
Generic they has indeterminate number:
* There's not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend â" Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3 (1594)
(Their can be understood equally well as referring to each man considered one at a time, or to all of them collectively.)[citation needed]
In this example, *his* would have been appropriate as gender is implied in the context of the writing, whereas 'user' is generic, and NOT gender specific. Using the pronoun 'her' instead of 'his' is as sexually discriminatory as using simply 'his' has been judged to be in the past. Therefore, I submit that 'their' is appropriate as user refers to one of any number of possible users, and not a single user of specific gender.
Re:OT Grammar Nazi comment (Score:4, Insightful)
Using the pronoun 'her' instead of 'his' is as sexually discriminatory as using simply 'his' has been judged to be in the past.
My grammar is terrible, but I do know that 'his' was used as the neutral/unspecified gender pronoun as well as the masculine pronoun (but we tend to use their now, it's what I would use) and that it has nothing to do with negative sexual discrimination.
Those that think women are denigrated by the use of "his" (eg "If a soldier lays down his arms ...") should really wonder why they think so little of women that they might need the rules of grammar to be changed to promote them.
Grammar Nazi needs to go back to Nazi Training (Score:2)
Thanks for playing, but you're wrong:
Each student is singular -- the is instead of are proves it -- so the colloquial their (a plural) doesn't agree with the verb, and is frowned on by traditionalists. It's common enough in speech -- "A friend of mine called me." "What did they say?" -- but, although many writers have used it (see examples from Jane Austen), it often sets off alarm bells among the fus
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One thing to remember when you are on /. (and the internet in general) is OVER HALF THE WORLD DOES NOT SPEAK ENGLISH AS A FIRST LANGUAGE. (yes, I am yelling at the few who can't seem to comprehend this)
Whose fault is it that English is not their first language?
Whose fault is it that the education system sucked?
Whose fault is it that they have a learning disability that makes them suck at grammar or spelling?
Is it bad that they are more interested in earning some cash to "feed the kids", or "spend quality t
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The final trick: preloading desktop environment files while waiting for the user to type the correct password."
The final trick: preloading desktop environment files while waiting for the user to type a password."
The final trick: preloading desktop environment files while waiting for the user to type a correct password."
All of those achieve grammatical correctness while maintaining gender neutra
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For a Grammar Nazi you got your grammar wrong.
When the gender is not known, and the subject is singular, the correct pronoun is "his." "Their" only works if the subject is plural.
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I would invoke the "Humpty Dumpty Principle" (from Carrol's "Through the Looking Glass"). Quoting: 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
"Their" is in common usage to indicate his/her. It has the advantage of being less awkward to say and looks less strange on the page. It also has the benefit of annoying grammarians, who seem to believe that they subscribe to the One True Way.
Their has been in common usage for a
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Re:Lame Dupeness. (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, er, you fail. Epically.
These are completely different types of work. What Arjan is doing is tailoring boot to a specific set of software running on a specific set of hardware, using an entirely legacy-free init system.
This is nothing at all like what Fred is doing, which is optimizing a legacy boot system for completely generic hardware and software - it has to run on any system, with any set of software available from the Mandriva repositories installed.
The two types of work are utterly and entirely different.
For the record, another of our engineers - Claudio Matsuoka - has been working on the *other* type of boot system for several months now. It began as a re-implementation of the 'fastinit' system found in the Xandros distribution on the Eee. This system is called 'finit', and you can find it at http://helllabs.org/finit/ [helllabs.org] . It is used in Mandriva Mini, our custom edition for netbook OEMs. It pre-dates Arjan's work substantially, or at least the public announcement of it.