Speed up the startup on OS X?

[Hooligan]

I've got an iBook G4 800mhz with 256mb ram. It seems to take forever to start up and load the OS- maybe 2.5 minutes. I realize that's not that long, but I thought Macs were known for fast startups. My PC, a P4 1.8/512/XP starts up in about 1.5 minutes. It seems like the iBook started much, much, much faster when it was new. (I want to say less than a minute?)

I'm new to Macs so any possible way to make it start up faster is a mystery to me- no matter how simple. Any suggestions? I don't have that many programs on the Mac... Finder says I have 20.6GB available. It automatically loads Norton Antivirus' AutoProtect and my AirPort Extreme card... that's it as far as I know.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help and pardon my newbieness!

edit: oh yeah, it's Mac OS X 10.3.2... the computer is about 2 months old and I use it often.

 

[rman]

I read the following on MacInTouch.

sudo ln -s
/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/

sudo cp -p
/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/

 

[rman]

The above may resolve your problem.

 

[muso]

I have a 900mhz g3 iBook with 640 ram and it starts up in less than half a minute (well that's to the login screen)

 

[Bluecrabby]

fast iBook

I have the exact same setup as muso and it starts very quickly 30-45 seconds. The thing that will help you is more memory. OS X is very fast, but is is a pig when it comes to memory. All macs should be maxed out on memory from the get go to perform well

 

[gatorparrots]

I read the following on MacInTouch.

sudo ln -s
/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/

sudo cp -p
/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/

For more gory details on this solution:

Reducing Panther boot times

Joachim Buechse
A number of users have been suffering slower startup since installing 10.3.2. Steve Minnick got a simple solution from Apple support, which he posted to the Apple discussion boards. I have investigated the technical details and described this a couple of days ago in a detailed post: Topic: HOWTO: Slow 10.3.2 startup fix

So far the responses were extremely positive. In short either one of the following commands will bring startup performance back to the pre X.3.2 level:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl*/usr/sbin/

sudo cp -p 
/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl*/usr/sbin/

There is a certain consensus that the ln solution is better than Apples original cp solution.

Furthermore we found out today that some users could not get their (foreign) keyboard setting to stick when using autologin in 10.3.2. The above fix also cures this problem.

Josh Rafofsky
...Folks have reported shaving 1-2 minutes off of their boot times after applying this fix. The technical details from the discussions forum at info.apple.com:

BootCacheControl is called during the startup process to create a cache of files needed to boot (up to the point were the login window is displayed). In the 10.3.2 version the executable is called from /etc/rc script twice:

- BootCacheControl
- BootCacheControl tag

both times its called using a shell variable set in /etc/rc which points to /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl (and if this would not exist it would point to /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl.) But there is another important call of the executable from the loginwindow
process later:

- /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl autostop 15

Unfortunately the file /usr/sbin/BootCacheControl does not exist on a(ll) updated 10.3.2 system. The copy command above takes care of that problem.

 

[Hooligan]

I read the following on MacInTouch.

sudo ln -s
/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/

sudo cp -p
/System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl /usr/sbin/

Again, pardon my newbieness... but what exactly am I supposed to do with the above? Like I said, I just switched to Mac and I'm not at all familar with anything beyond just the basics.

 

[rman]

Go to the Mac OS X, then Application, followed by Utlities. Once there run the terminal application. At the terminal window prompt. Enter the above command.

 

[zanoncello]

i have the same thing where it takes a long time to boot so i thought i would try the the fix. I could get the first line to work but the second line it just tells me how i should be using the command like i'm not using it right.

i copied and pasted so i dunno why it would say that

 

[rman]

Code:
sudo ln -s /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl* /usr/sbin/

Code:
sudo cp -p /System/Library/Extensions/BootCache.kext/Contents/Resources/BootCacheControl* /usr/sbin/

You may want to try this one from gatorparrots. The one I got from macintouch appears to be same thing twice.

 

[pjn]

You may want to try this one from gatorparrots. The one I got from macintouch appears to be same thing twice.

Superb! This has just got my power-on -> login time to under 40 seconds - thanks!

 

[rman]

Glad that gatorparrots came through with the correction.