• Boot Order After Linux Install

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    #347925

    Good morning! I have a quick question about boot order after Linux has been installed from a live USB boot. I have tried and installed Mint 19.1 from a bootable USB with a dual boot on my old Vista laptop. I had changed the boot order to make the USB bootable, and now, I am now finding that the boot into Mint is very slow. I was wondering if I should reset the boot order back to the hard drive first now that Mint is actually on the hard drive? Would that speed things up? Maybe Linux is looking for that bootable drive and there isn’t one now?

    There is a lot more info in this discussion, which has gotten pretty long, so I thought I’d just ask this quick question in a new thread.

    I am loving Mint BTW, but the long boot – and the occasional loss of connection for my USB mouse – are the main issues I am now trying to resolve.

    Thanks everyone for any help!

    LH

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    • #347960

      Edit: Ok, I think I know what you’re saying.  Previously I thought you were still booting from the USB drive after Mint had been installed.  After rereading, I think you changed the boot order to start from the USB in order to install Linux, and now it boots slow from the hard drive with the USB drive removed?

      I would suggest to definitely switch back to the hard drive as the primary boot device.  It would be the BIOS that is looking for the USB drive to try to boot from it, but it should not take too long to discover that it’s not there and go to the next item in the boot priority list, which I would guess is the hard drive.

      Is it slow to get to the GRUB menu (that gives the choice of Mint or Windows), or is that pretty quick and it just takes a long time afterwards?

       

       

       

      Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
      XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
      Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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      • #347987

        Edit: Ok, I think I know what you’re saying. Previously I thought you were still booting from the USB drive after Mint had been installed. After rereading, I think you changed the boot order to start from the USB in order to install Linux, and now it boots slow from the hard drive with the USB drive removed?

        Yes – that is right. Initially I booted from the USB that had Mint on it – and performed the install with that USB in place – there was the Install Now icon on the Mint desktop. I then rebooted and removed the USB and have not been using it since.

        I would suggest to definitely switch back to the hard drive as the primary boot device. It would be the BIOS that is looking for the USB drive to try to boot from it, but it should not take too long to discover that it’s not there and go to the next item in the boot priority list, which I would guess is the hard drive. Is it slow to get to the GRUB menu (that gives the choice of Mint or Windows), or is that pretty quick and it just takes a long time afterwards?

        It doesn’t take long to get to that choice page, about 20 seconds, but after that it is a long process. There are long periods of just a black screen – no hard drive activity, and after about 6 minutes it starts to boot, but is another minute or so before it comes to the Welcome to Mint screen.

        I did post the info about systemd analyze etc over at the original thread yesterday, just before the AW site issues.

        I’ll go ahead and change that boot order and see if there is any difference! Thanks so much for the continued help!!

        • #348034

          Is it slow to get to the GRUB menu (that gives the choice of Mint or Windows), or is that pretty quick and it just takes a long time afterwards?

          It doesn’t take long to get to that choice page, about 20 seconds, but after that it is a long process. There are long periods of just a black screen – no hard drive activity, and after about 6 minutes it starts to boot, but is another minute or so before it comes to the Welcome to Mint screen.

          Well now, that’s odd…

          All of the motherboard boot order would have happened before you got to the Grub menu. Meaning, it “should” have no effect whatsoever on what happens after the menu.

          So then, how could it possibly take 6 minutes to load the kernel… well. Usually when this happens I look for hardware problems. Might also be a driver problem in which case you’ll need to find a kernel without that problem.

          Those may show up in “dmesg” output, but you may find it easier to just disable the fancy graphics during bootup and look at all the text go by… or stop and wait for something.

          Not being familiar with Mint specifically, I’d expect it to have a “recovery mode” boot option in the menu anyway that’d have all the normal text output enabled already.

          If not, well, not sure if it’d be better to just one-off edit the boot entry temporarily in the menu, or go and edit Grub config permanently…

          • #348083

            Mn-, LHiggins is reporting in another thread that Vista (on the same physical disk as Linux) is also taking a really long time to load, so it’s not likely to be anything with Linux having a driver issue.  Something is wrong in the state of Denmark!

            I suggested checking out the HDD in the other thread.  I concur that it appears to be hardware related.

            Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
            XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
            Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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            • #348113

              My thoughts are the same. If both OS are booting slowly from the same HDD, that would indicate a possible drive health issue, maybe even impending failure. It is an old drive.

              Drivers on the Linux partition would have no effect on the drivers in the Windows partition, and vice versa.

              Also, if the “live” Linux boot from USB was much faster than the boot from HDD, that would make that case even more likely.

              Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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            • #348173

              OK – I did update the boot times in the other thread. This time Vista was fast – I think when I had posted that it was very slow, it was because I was having an issue with needing to do a disk check and scan to get it running. My error – sorry ’bout that! Vista seems OK.

              So what might that mean if Vista is OK and Linux is not?

               

               

    • #347996

      And I do also have a slew of updates to all kinds of things that I didn’t install yet in Mint. Not sure if that is making any difference either.

      One of them is an update to a new kernel 4.15.0.47.49. That is different from what it was yesterday or the day before. The prior one seemed to have issues with the usb drives according to what I’d been able to fine online about it, so I didn’t install it or any of them yet. My USB is glitchy after a restart, so I didn’t want to complicate matters!

      • #348007

        Linux Mint Update Manager explained

        The Linux Mint Update Manager is designed to avoid (inexperienced) users from installing updates that require a certain level of experience and knowledge. The update Manager categorizes all updates into 5 levels. By default, level 1 to 3 are selected for updating, level 4 and 5 are deselected and won’t be updated. Furthermore, each level can be set as safe and visible by selecting or deselecting these options. in addition to above, all updates are being checked by the developers team before being released.

        More detail available at the linked page.

        Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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        • #348078

          Hi John!

          Thanks so much! I had to add the Levels column and then I could see the different levels. The kernel update is marked as level 4, but it is checked to download – seems they all are. There are 90 of them. I think I may just wait on that till I get the boot issues figured out – but I have bookmarked that page for future reference!

          Thanks again!

          • #348093

            Whenever I have installed Linux, I typically install ALL available updates immediately. That way I know that I am starting with a current, up to date baseline. No telling how far behind the curve the downloaded ISO install distro can be.

            Those 90 updates waiting indicates there are quite a few. No telling for sure, but there might be some necessary bug fixes lurking in that list. Besides, you are in the testing phase anyway, so what’s the worst thing that could possibly happen? You might need to re-install Mint, but nothing to lose at this point besides time and patience. 🙂

            Going forward for Mint, I uncheck levels 4 & 5 unless they are marked as security updates, and always install level 1-3 updates immediately.

            Then after the non-security level 4 & 5 items have “baked” a bit longer, I take a backup and install them at a time of my choosing. Kind of like with Woody’s with “Defcon”. I figure anything bad would get fixed in a few weeks after release.

            The risk for a desktop user is minimal. This isn’t Windows! 🙂

            FYI, the update level system is a Mint exclusive, and does not exist in the upstream Ubuntu and Debian software managers, which pretty much install all updates, unless you de-select specific ones that you do not want.

            Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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            • #348177

              Thanks John! You are right – I really don’t have anything to lose and those updates may also help speed things up. I had posted about the error messages I am seeing when booting from the live USB in the other thread – I apologize for there being two threads – I thought this question might have a quick answer, but I can see that there is a lot that is intertwined!

              Would it be OK to do them in groups or should I just go ahead and install them all? I am concerned about that kernel, since yesterday or the day before it was a slightly different one, and when I looked that up online, it said not to download it since it could cause USB connection issues. I didn’t want to create any MORE problems – but since this is a different number, maybe that issue doesn’t exist – or the USB issue was fixed?

              Thanks!!

               

      • #348631

        @LHiggins: regarding kernel 4.15.0.47.49, here is a thread on the Linux Mint forum.

        1x Linux Mint 19.1 | 1x Linux antiX

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