Is fog changing something in Ubuntu
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My scenario is very simple:
4 MBR partitions, all primary. sda1 - windows reserved, sda2 - Windows 10, sda3 - Ubuntu (16.04 LTS), sda4 - swap.
I created an image of this layout using the default image settings, the only things I changed were operating system (set to Linux) and image type set to multiple partitions (not resizable).I deployed the image back to the computer I captured from to test.
Windows 10 is ok, I didn’t see any problems.
But Ubuntu behaves strangely. First, the boot process takes longer and the splash screen appears (it didn’t before deploy). Here it is:Before deploy
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AjK6jdfixJfHLCBy2
And after deploy:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/95pguWbBrx57gWKO2
Another thing I noticed is that Ubuntu seems slower when opening apps or logging in in other accounts I created, compared to how it worked before deploy.
Is FOG doing something to the Ubuntu partition after deployment? Something like reinstalling GRUB or changing in any way the Linux config files?
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@andreiv said in Is fog changing something in Ubuntu:
Is FOG doing something to the Ubuntu partition after deployment? Something like reinstalling GRUB or changing in any way the Linux config files?
FOG doesn’t touch any of the config files in the OS unless you’re using the FOG Client in the OS your deploying - in which case the FOG Client does it’s thing as intended.
As far as the slowness, I myself have had very slow boot times for Ubuntu machines I’ve deployed using FOG - but after the OS is loaded, things are very snappy as normal. I don’t think it’s grub related, I think it must be something else.
In my particular case, I took an image from a spinning SATA 3 disk, and deployed it to a solid-state SATA 3 disk in the same laptop. (the reason for the capture/deploy was to go from mechanical to solid-state).
I haven’t looked at your videos yet, as I’m at work. I just wanted to pop in with a quick reply.
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Thanks for your reply. No, I didn’t use the FOG client. If you will have time to look at my videos, you will see that the boot changes. After deploy, the splash screen appears and the boot is slower by 50% (10 second before deploy, 15 seconds after). That wouldn’t be a big issue but I’m curious why it this happening and, if that changed, what else is affected or could be affected?
I did a test by capturing and redeploying the same hard drive with Clonezilla. I used disk image and went with expert mode and disabled all optional items (like partition resize, and other things). I wanted just a plain simple image. I then restored the image created with Clonezilla and the boot time and behaviour are exactly the same as they were after install. So Clonezilla doesn’t cause any changes in boot behaviour or OS response time.
I think maybe FOG passes some parameters to partclone on capture or restore that could create the problems? Or the way it recreates or formats the partition?
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@andreiv That’s an interesting one. As Wayne said FOG does not change anything within the partitions/filesystems/OS files!
What I noticed in your videos are two things (maybe there is more but those two jumped at me):
- Desktop background picture is different. Could be because it’s set to dynamic or because you changed it manually after deploy.
- In the second video (“slow” boot) we see the network established notice in the top right corner. To me this looks like network connection is coming up a bit slower and that could easily delay the boot by 5 seconds. Though question remains, why would that only happen on the deployed system if it’s the very same hardware machine!?
The other thing is, how often have you tried this? Are the bootup times higher on the deployed system even if you test 20 times in a row? Is this really the exact same hardware machine? Just wanna make sure…
Maybe try adding kernel output to the boot process so we see more of that.
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@sebastian-roth
Yes, it is the same machine.I did some more testing today, went through the Ubuntu apps and everything seems OK. So if we ignore the splash screen coming up after deployment and a few seconds of delay in the first boot (I don’t think that in subsequent reboots the time difference remains), then we can safely consider this a “strange thing” but not a problem.
So thank you all for your help and your time. Let’s consider this matter closed.
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@andreiv said in Is fog changing something in Ubuntu:
a few seconds of delay in the first boot
If it’s only the first boot, that’s just the kernel realizing things have changed - it’s looking for all hardware and re-configuring itself possibly. The same thing happens when you install a linux OS and then boot it for the first time - the first boot takes a bit longer, and subsequent boots are much faster.
My problem however happens every time I boot.
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I’ve found that the slowness is from the swap partition. In Ubuntu the fstab references it by uuid. While fog does try to assign the original swap uuid I haven’t seen any real luck. Replacing the swap uuid with the actual device and partition number seems to fix this for me. The slowdown I mean.
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@tom-elliott
Yes, I saw this issue also and replaced all references in fstab with /dev/sdx instead of UUID. -
@andreiv and is it fixed?
