Linux PC booting slowly? This handy tool shows why in seconds – here’s how
Linux PC booting slowly? This handy tool shows why in seconds – here’s how
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-boot-time-systemd-analyze/
Publish Date: 2026-03-03 10:52:00
Source Domain: www.zdnet.com
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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- If your Linux machine’s boot is slow, try this tool.
- Systemd-analyze offers several options to help.
- Any systemd-supporting Linux machine will have these.
Linux has a ton of handy tools that can help you uncover things that are right, things that are wrong, and everything in between. You can customize it to your heart’s content or leave it as-is.
At some point, you might get curious as to what’s slowing down the boot time of your Linux machine. Although that might sound like a difficult task, you’d be surprised at how easy it actually is. In fact, Linux has a built-in tool to help you do just that.
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If your Linux distribution uses the systemd init system, you already have what you need to solve the problem of slow boot times, and I’m going to show you how to use the tool.
systemd-analyze
The tool in question is a part of the systemd init system, and it’s called systemd-analyze. What this tool does is analyze and debug the initialization manager in Linux.
If you were to simply run the command systemd-analyze, you’d see results that look something like this:
Startup finished in 6.669s (kernel) + 30.368s (userspace) = 37.037s
graphical.target reached after 27.479s in userspace
As you can see above, the total startup time for one of my machines is 37.037 seconds, with 6.669s for the kernel and 30.368 seconds for userspace apps. Then there’s the graphical.target reached (the login screen) at 27.479 seconds.
Also: 8 things you can do with Linux that you can’t do with MacOS or Windows
That’s some pretty good information, but it doesn’t really help us much. The good news is that there are some important options we can use to help us figure out what’s going on.
blame
The first option is blame, which lists all systemd unit files, showing the time each unit took to initialize during the last boot,…
