A Fast-Boot Method for Embedded Mobile Linux: Toward a Single-Digit User Sensed Boot Time for Full-Featured Commercial Phones

Software on mobile devices has become increasingly complicated as end users demand a PC-converged user experience on the mobile Internet. This has complicated the software configuration and boot procedures, resulting in a longer boot time. This is damaging to the mobile user experience. Many legacy techniques to enable the fast boot time differentiation in mobile handsets are not applicable to the today's advanced handsets, which are capable of handling rich multimedia applications. The authors propose a fast boot method for embedded mobile Linux, that is suitable for mobile handsets. They evaluate the proposed method in a prototype for a commercial handset and show positive results in a single-digit user sensed boot time.