One way to speed up the boot in Debian is to replace bash with dash as /bin/sh in the default installation. This was proposed as a release goal for Lenny, but it isn't enabled by default.

Dash as /bin/sh by default

Lenny users:

  1. Install dash

    • apt-get install dash

  2. Configure dash as the default shell
    • dpkg-reconfigure dash

Squeeze users:

Bash as /bin/sh by default

If your Lenny or Squeeze system is configured so /bin/sh is dash, you can revert to bash using the command:

and follow the instructions.

See also