starting network at boottime

[user unknown]

Well - the knoppix-autoconfig (k-a) is a big big script in /etc/init.d.

I used SuSe ca. 1992, redhat at 96, peanut-linux and halloween - now knoppix.

Every distro has it's own procedure of booting, and they evolve over time - so I guess what suse does nowadays is pretty much different from what they did 10 years ago.

A few weeks ago I had a bootup to console of 25 sec. (at 1.1 Ghz).
Then my harddrive headcrashed, and I started from scratch.

The k-a is used and useful if nearly nothing is known about your hardware, so a lot of searches and tests are done, which indeed consume much time. It handles bootoptions as well.

I removed brltty-stuff, harddrive-detection, multiple language-settings, pcmcia-stuff and lot's more which I understood and could say: "I don't need it".

But if don't know the scripting-language, and no computerlanguage at all, it will be very hard to tell for each detail, whether you need it or not.

Ok - I had a look at my backup, and would say:
You do it on your own risk!
Make a backup first!
remove these lines (ca. line 900)

# Fat-Client-Version: DHCP Broadcast for IP address
if checkbootparam "nodhcp"; then
echo " ${BLUE}Skipping DHCP broadcast/network detection as requested on boot commandline.${NORMAL}"
else
NETDEVICES="$(awk -F: '/eth.:|tr.:/{print $1}' /proc/net/dev 2>/dev/null)"
for DEVICE in $NETDEVICES
do
echo -n " ${GREEN}Network device ${MAGENTA}$DEVICE${GREEN} detected, DHCP broadcasting for IP.${NORMAL}"
trap 2 3 11
pump -i $DEVICE >/dev/null 2>&1 &
trap "" 2 3 11
sleep 1
echo " ${BLUE}(Backgrounding)${NORMAL}"
done
fi

but you could as well first boot with bootparameter 'nodhcp' - and if it speeds up your things, make an entry in '/etc/lilo.conf': 'append="nodhcp"' - syntax unproofed - and rerun lilo. Voila.

P.S.: In my opinion, this script should be improved by making it more modal.
It could contain lines like:
k-a-harddrives
k-a-pcmcia
k-a-keyboard
k-a-mouse
k-a-network
...
to make it better maintainable.

[baldyeti]

FWIW, on my mepis box /etc/init.d/networking is linked to /etc/rc0.d/S35networking ... At S10 you may simply be starting it too early.