Fixing Slow System Startup in Kali Linux

A little wording about slow system startup times. We see this question sometimes in Forums and Our Conversations with Folks Online as well. 

There is no one answer to why this could happen. But what can be done, is try to see where the problem lies. I have had my fair share of issues like this and they ranged from a wrong entry in fstab to network issues.

So how can we troubleshoot this?

First, we can have (visible) logging enabled during boot time. 

Normally we see the nice (Kali) splash screen during boot and we get no feedback at all. Just that the system seems to "hang" or take forever to finish the boot process. 

To enable visible logging during startup, do the following:

At the Grub screen, hit the E key.

Now you can modify the Grub menu (one-time)

Go to the line that says "linux /boot/vmlinuz........quiet splash"

Go to that line and remove the entries "quiet" and "splash"

Hit F10 to exit and start normally

Now you will see a lot of logging. Intresting to see anyway, because you get a feeling about what stuff is happening during boot.

Now you can see errors, warnings or where the process takes ages. So at least you now have a clue where to look.

Like I said above, the issue might be a faulty line in fstab. It could be that it tries to mount a non-existent filesystem. The issue could also be in the networking part. Especially when DHCP is not (or not properly) responding. The retrying for an IP address can take a long time.

Another option that I want to mention is to use systemd (love it or hate it, but Kali comes with systemd). 

2 commands that I want to highlight:

$ systemd-analyze time --> gives total boot times

$ systemd-analyze blame --> lists processes and the time they ran during startup (sorted from long to short).

The commands above might even give you inspiration to disable some services for even faster startup times.

Anyway, just a short piece of text and I hope it helps you. Of course, you can still reach out to the members in the Kali Forum when you have issues. Most of them are willing to help.

Happy Hacking.