How to Diagnose & Speed Up Arch Linux Boot Time (2025 Guide)

A slow boot can be frustrating on a powerful distro like Arch Linux. Fortunately, systemd provides powerful tools to diagnose and fix the bottlenecks. This guide will walk you through analyzing your boot process and applying common optimizations.

How to Diagnose Boot Performance with systemd-analyze

Start by understanding where time is being spent during your boot process using these essential commands.

Interpreting the Output

An example output might look like this:

Startup finished in 8.075s (firmware) + 3.495s (loader) + 1.414s (kernel) + 1min 30.309s (userspace) = 1min 43.295s

This clearly shows the userspace phase is the main bottleneck at 1 minute 30 seconds.

Common Slow Boot Issues and Solutions

1. Service Conflicts and Timeouts

Multiple network managers (like systemd-networkd, iwd, and NetworkManager) enabled simultaneously can cause delays. Choose one and disable the others.

sudo systemctl disable --now iwd.service
sudo systemctl disable --now systemd-networkd.service
sudo systemctl enable --now NetworkManager.service

2. Socket Activation for Heavy Services

For services like Docker that significantly impact boot time, replace direct service startup with socket activation. This starts the service only when it's first needed.

sudo systemctl disable docker.service
sudo systemctl enable docker.socket

One user reported boot time reduction from 68 to 28 seconds using this method alone.

3. Hardware-Specific Issues

• Slow Kernel Time: If the kernel phase takes >10 seconds, this may indicate storage or hardware issues. Check journalctl for AMD GPU timeout messages or storage controller problems.
• Wait for Network: The systemd-networkd-wait-online.service can delay boot. Consider if your system truly needs full network connectivity before boot completion and disable it if not.

Optimization Checklist

Apply these additional optimizations for better boot performance:

• Review Enabled Services: Disable unnecessary services with sudo systemctl disable <service-name>.
• Kernel Parameters: Add libahci.ignore_sss=1 to your bootloader config to disable staggered spin-up on some hardware.
• Filesystem Mounts: Use noauto,x-systemd.automount in /etc/fstab for non-critical filesystems to mount them on first access.
• Initramfs Optimization: Consider slimmer alternatives like Booster or use the systemd hook in mkinitcpio.conf instead of base and udev.

Real-World Example

Here's how one user solved their 1 minute 43 second boot time:

1. Identified the Culprit: systemd-analyze critical-chain showed network.target waiting over a minute.
2. Discovered Root Cause: Multiple conflicting network services were enabled.
3. Applied Fix: Consolidated to a single network manager.
4. Verified Improvement: Boot time was reduced significantly.

After applying optimizations, run systemd-analyze again to compare results. Most systems can achieve 15-30 second boot times with proper tuning.