Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: fast-lsb-release

• Created: 2008-06-02

• Contributors: LarsWirzenius

• Packages affected: lsb-release

FIXME

• Discuss the implementation approach with upstream.
• Ubuntu desktop team: there's no need to call lsb_release during boot at all.
• Instead of hard-wiring values during build, consider caching them.
• Investigate possibilities of optimising the generic version, too.

Summary

"lsb_release -ir" can add a couple of seconds to boot time. Make it fast.

Release Note

This spec has no end-use impact.

Rationale

According to profiling of the Ubuntu boot process, running "lsb_release -ir" can add a couple of seconds to the total boot time. This is primarily because it is written in a way to be generic for all Debian and derivative systems. For example, it queries the system using apt-cache.

Since, in fact, lsb_release will always report the same results for a given release of a given operating system, the results could be hardwired, speeding things up a lot. However, since this requires special care from derivatives to not break lsb_release, the existing, generic behavior should be retained, too.

Design

Modify the lsb-release package to optionally determine as many output values as possible at build-time. Enable this in the Ubuntu version of the package. Additionally, add option --generic to force running the generic version.

Implementation

To be determined.

Test/Demo Plan

• Build the modified version of lsb-release on every still-supported
  • release of Ubuntu and Debian.
• Run lsb_release with and without the --generic option.
• Verify that outputs match.

CategorySpec