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Instant boot Linux? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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Hi all,

Is there a method out there that can "save a hibernate state" to disk, and just permanently boot immediately into that state every time?

It would be OK to lose data used after this point. And ot would also be OK if it required building a custom image based on the hardware, similar to embedded systems.

The goal is to be able to, as quickly as possible, spin up a GPU server when needed, but without using suspend/resume.

Thanks.

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[–] [S] 1 point 2 months ago* (4 children)

Desktop with GPUs. I've tried immutable, but that really doesn't impact boot speed. It's still the same startup procedure. And I use ZFS, so I could roll back (or use tmpfs), but that still requires the full boot process.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    What's your use case or broader goal? In some specific cases you might be able to use a VM instead of a bare metal server. The host would be idling all the time, but the VM can start from a snapshot near instantly

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    Power saving with encryption at rest. I want the GPUs offline power wise.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    Just spitballing here, but if you use a VM with gpu passthrough, the host system doesn't even see the GPU anymore, so if the VM is off I imagine the GPU is basically off as well. In terms of encryption at rest, you can probably make a separate LUKS volume for the VM disk image, and then lock it when the VM is off.

    Edit: for example I have a VM with GPU passthrough and when the VM is off, I have no way to check the power consumption of the GPU (aside fom using external hardware) since the host doesn't have access. The host uses a sort of dummy driver for the GPU, so that the hypervisor can pass it on to the VM, so it is actually possible for the host to switch the driver and take control of the GPU when the VM is off. But until then I imagine power consumption is minimal.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 months ago

    I used to do this for my virtual gaming rig, and the catch is still idle draw. Just one B70 pulls over 30W idle, then there's the nvidia card and then CPU etc, too. As this machine is solely for remote development and inference, I want it fully off.

    Now, I guess I do have all the confidential stuff in encrypted ZFS, so I can shutdown the docker containers, unmount ZFS, and suspend. This gives me encryption at rest. The problem is the startup/resume is actually slower than you might think.

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