For some makers, pushing the Raspberry Pi to its limits is just part of the experience. Today we’re sharing an impressive project from maker Furkan Tokaç who has managed to absolutely slash the Raspberry Pi 3 boot time.
According to Tokaç, the normal boot time is just over 10 seconds with the boot delay set to 0. With his optimizations in place, the boot time takes approximately 1.75 seconds to load the OS and 2.82 seconds total to power up a QML application.
Tokaç’s website features a blog post breaking down the boot process and each step along the way. Most of the strategy involved removing unnecessary components from the initial boot process. This comes with its own caveats, for example, the USB drivers have been removed making it hard to use keyboard and mouse over USB.
The best Raspberry Pi projects are ones you can make yourself and, thankfully, Tokaç has shared everything you need to get started. You’ll need to clone a repository shared to GitHub and follow Tokaç’s instructions to complete the setup process.
This might not be applicable to the latest Raspberry Pi model but it’s still a very useful modification. If you have a Pi project that would benefit from a shorter boot time that can run on the Raspberry Pi 3, it’s worth heading over to Tokaç’s blog to see exactly how it’s done.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.