"readahead" shortened KNOPPIX CD boot time by 60sec on our machine (Celeron 2.0 Ghz, 768MB, 24X CD).
readahead HP http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/lin...readahead.html

"readahead" populates the page cache with data from files so that subsequent reads from these files will not block on disk I/O. /etc/init.d/readahead is a script to cache files which is reburied at KNOPPIX boot process. We made KNOPPIX with readahead to make quick boot on KNOPPIX. The performance is measured by bootchart (http://www.bootchart.org/). The result is shown at the following figures.
The detail is written in the following HP. iso file of "KNOPPIX wih readahead" is downloadable. You can check performance on your machine. Have fun.
http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/.../index-en.html

Target Machine: NotePC Sharp Mebius PC-GP-D7E
CPU: Celeron 2.0 Ghz, Memory: 768MB, CD Drive: Matsushita DVD-RAM UJ-810

kernel2.6 + readahead (time: 150sec)

Original full size figure http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/..._readahead.png

kernel 2.6 (time: 210sec)

Original full size figure http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/...tchart-2.6.png