The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Bootchart
BOOT CAMP
What could be more boring than watching a computer run through an error-free boot routine? Why watch for messages that may never appear? Every second you save adds to your valuable leisure time. Bootchart helps you find those valuable leisure moments.
Bootchart [1] runs in the background while a computer is booting, keeping a watchful eye on the hard disk and the CPU load, noting the launch order for daemons, and letting you know if something is causing a delay. After collecting the results, Bootchart presents the relevant information in a user friendly graphic like the chart shown in Figure 1. Version 0.4 of Bootchart is a 60KB tar archive, which you can quickly unpack by typing tar xvzpf bootchart-0.4.tar.gz Now that was quick, or was it? A glance at the readme file reveals that Bootchart needs a Java Development Kit. Fortunately, the tool isn’t fussy about your choice of Java; it works fine with GCJ [2], the IBM Developer Kit [3], and Sun’s J2SE SDK [4] – I opted for Sun’s coffee roaster. I didn’t want to do without an I/ O load display, so I followed the recommendation in the readme and installed iostat from the sysstat package [5].
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
News
-
Cisco Releases Annual Security Report
Spammers go low-volume, and 90% of IE browsers are unpatched.
-
Zero Day Exploits Target Flash
Adobe scrambles to release patches for vulnerable Flash Player.
-
Intel Unveils Compute Stick
Four-inch-long computer on a stick lets you boot a full Linux system from any HDMI display device.
-
Obama Proposes Personal Data Notification Law
New statute would require companies to report break-ins to consumers.
-
TGXf Project Warns of File Transfer through Screen Pixels
Weird data transfer technique avoids all standard security measures.
-
Industry Giants Announce a Fix for the Password Mess
FIDO alliance declares the beginning of the end for old-style login authentication.
-
Poll: Vote for the Best Open Source Software for Photographers
The Linux New Media Awards have honored the most significant products, projects, people, and organizations for open source/Linux every year since 2000.
-
Debian Gets Forked
Legendary Uber-distro splits over the systemd controversy.
-
Linux Mint Project Releases Mint 17.1
New LTS version offers many refinements for the Cinnamon and Mate desktops and significant improvement under the hood.
-
CeBIT Open Source Forum Call for Papers
One of CeBIT’s most successful forums returns in 2015.