After reading Lifehacker’s post on e4rat (an app that’s supposed to “seriously cut down on Linux Boot time” according to Lifehacker) I have a few notes to make:

1. It INCREASED my boot-time by 2-5 seconds! Yes, instead of decreasing it, it increased it.

The most probable reason is that I’m hard it on an SSD. Also, although some programs’ startup times have decreased (OpenOffice.org), it did not affect Firefox/Chrome/Pidgin, so my overall “startup+start programs” time is really longer than before!

Disabling e4rat (by removing the option at grub, undoing step3 in Lifehacker’s guide) fortunately brings back original startup times, while OpenOffice.org still loads pretty quick.

2. there is no 64-bit deb available officially. Here’s one I compiled. It works..

3. You should not edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg as the article proposes (It says so in the commencement of grub.cfg, Da!). Instead exchange /etc/defaulting/grub and then do # update-grub.

Conclusions:

• E4rat: nice concept, but probably a waste of time for SSD users
• Lifehacker nearly deceived us by stating that it “Cuts Down on Linux Boot Time”
• E4rat developer’s claim “Improving Startup Times” is valid but does not guarantee System Startup Times Improvement!

Check it out:DIY is the way