Is a 5 minute long Live USB boot time normal?

Question

I've just made a Live USB stick with Ubuntu 11.10 USB creator. I tried it on 2 laptops and the boot time is very long, more than 5 minutes. Is it normal?

If it is, what is the interest of having a portable OS if it take ages to boot?

With a 2GB memory stick, I reduced the persistent memory from 4 to 1GB and the boot time was faster, less than 2 minutes. I tried with an 8GB USB stick again with a persistent memory of 1GB, and the boot time is 4 minutes.

It seems that the boot time is linked with the USB memory stick and persistent memory size.

Is that true? Will the boot time be faster with a "class 8" USB memory stick?

Solution

It depends on your usb stick and maybe your usb port is not usb2?

It could take 5 minutes, although in most cases it shouldn't. For it never was faster than a hard-drive boot.

The interest of having portable os is mainly because it is portable... And as opposed to a live cd you can make changes to it that will remain after a reboot. alt+enter during boot, i get a black screen with nothing written, no console, nothing

Comments

[dupont]

my laptop should be usb2 as it is less than 6 month old, emachine E644G. 5 mn boot time is far too long.

[dupont]

USB stick is 8Gb, i'll try alt+enter and post.

[dupont]

when am i supposed to press alt+enter during boot ? I tried but had a black screen.

[d_inevitable]

When you see the ubuntu splash screen. That's The purple one with the logo and the dots. It should remove the splash screen and show what it is doing in the background. Never tried it with usb boots tho.

[dupont]

that what I tried but when i press alt+enter, the screen switch from black to ubuntu splash screen

[d_inevitable]

It is a toggle button. It toggles between splash screen and console output. Just watch console and let us know which step is taking so long, by editing your question.