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I have numerous hard drives that I boot from. I have drives for Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 as well as various versions of Ubuntu. Also other distros of Linux such as Kubuntu and Debian.

I have downloaded and installed Ubuntu 18.04.01 and found it painfully slow. I have tested numerous configurations to get the following numbers.

All tests have been run on the very same computer, except for swapping the drive. I have been using three identical SSDs, all purchased at the same time. I began by wiping two SSDs using Darik's Boot and Nuke (writing zeroes). Then I installed a copy of 16.04 on one and 18.04.1 on the other. The third SSD began with a fresh install of Windows 7 and then added 16.04 to it.

I also ran additional tests booting live copies of 16.04 and 18.04.1 from thumb drives (USB 2).

WiFi turned off, Ethernet cable connected.

Here are my times to boot and shutdown.

Boot times are measured from when I pushed the power button.

Windows 7: 20 seconds to boot the the desktop.

Ubuntu 16.04 from SSD: 23 seconds to boot. 3 seconds to shut down.

Ubuntu 16.04 live from thumb drive: 55 + 23 seconds. (The first time is from power on to the screen prompting if I want to try or install Ubuntu. The second is from clicking "Try Ubuntu" to the desktop.) 5 seconds to shutdown.

Ubuntu 18.04.1 from SSD: 4 minutes 40 seconds to boot. 1 minute 5 seconds to shut down.

Ubuntu 18.04.1 live from thumb drive: 6 minutes 12 seconds + 2 minutes 25 seconds. 35 seconds to shutdown.

As you can see, the performance of 18.04 is unacceptable. I did a presentation last night to some Windows users of setting up their systems to dual boot so they could try Ubuntu, but I found that I had to demonstrate the older version. None of them would have cared to ever try anything with the performance of this new version.

Here's the output from "systemd-analyze blame"

     31.709s plymouth-start.service

     30.298s systemd-backlight@backlight:intel_backlight.service

     20.361s plymouth-quit-wait.service

     20.081s apt-daily.service

      3.045s NetworkManager-wait-online.service

      2.923s snapd.service

      2.419s apparmor.service

      1.610s dev-sda1.device

       862ms fwupd.service

       721ms dev-loop3.device

       720ms dev-loop1.device

       718ms dev-loop2.device

       714ms dev-loop0.device

       704ms dev-loop4.device

       698ms dev-loop5.device

       694ms dev-loop6.device

       565ms udisks2.service

       553ms NetworkManager.service

       482ms networkd-dispatcher.service

       478ms swapfile.swap

       404ms keyboard-setup.service

       382ms systemd-journal-flush.service

       358ms ModemManager.service

       351ms systemd-journald.service

       349ms systemd-udev-trigger.service

       241ms dns-clean.service

       238ms accounts-daemon.service

       231ms plymouth-read-write.service

       229ms console-setup.service

       199ms gpu-manager.service

       193ms avahi-daemon.service

       190ms speech-dispatcher.service

       186ms upower.service

       181ms grub-common.service

       176ms systemd-rfkill.service

       166ms systemd-resolved.service

       160ms snap-gnomex2dcalculator-180.mount

       157ms apport.service

       155ms systemd-logind.service

       155ms snap-gnomex2dcharacters-103.mount

       151ms systemd-timesyncd.service

       150ms snap-gnomex2dsystemx2dmonitor-51.mount

       146ms snap-gnomex2dlogs-37.mount

       138ms thermald.service

       135ms pppd-dns.service

       132ms dev-loop7.device

       132ms snap-gnomex2d3x2d26x2d1604-70.mount

       131ms rsyslog.service

       126ms snap-gtkx2dcommonx2dthemes-319.mount

       113ms snap-core-4917.mount

       108ms bolt.service

       103ms wpa_supplicant.service

       102ms snapd.seeded.service

       101ms alsa-restore.service

        80ms systemd-modules-load.service

        78ms user@1000.service

        75ms systemd-udevd.service

        71ms polkit.service

        66ms packagekit.service

        63ms gdm.service

        60ms systemd-random-seed.service

        58ms dev-mqueue.mount

        57ms sys-kernel-debug.mount

        54ms dev-hugepages.mount

        54ms kmod-static-nodes.service

        53ms ufw.service

        48ms systemd-remount-fs.service

        47ms snap-core-5145.mount

        46ms systemd-sysctl.service

        45ms systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service

        44ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service

        37ms networking.service

        35ms sys-kernel-config.mount

        31ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service

        29ms colord.service

        29ms kerneloops.service

        28ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount

        19ms systemd-user-sessions.service

        17ms systemd-update-utmp.service

        14ms ureadahead-stop.service

        14ms setvtrgb.service

        10ms systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service

         8ms rtkit-daemon.service

         6ms systemd-backlight@leds:dell::kbd_backlight.service

         4ms snapd.socket

If eye candy like plymouth is not that important for you, which consumes ~31 seconds of your boot time, you can disable it.

First, in the file /etc/default/grub, change the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash” to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="".

Then, update grub

sudo update-grub

If that's not enough, then do

sudo mv /etc/init/plymouth.conf /etc/init/plymouth.conf.disabled

As for NetworkManager-wait-online.service, edit the file /lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager-wait-online.service as root user, then look for the following lines:

[Service]

Type=oneshot

ExecStart=/usr/bin/nm-online -s -q --timeout=30

Change the timeout to lower value, though some might suggest down until 10 will do, in my system, I have down to 1, and it's running fine.

In my system, I also removed snapd, and my boot time is now only around 18-19 seconds.

References:

Ubuntu 15.04 network manager causing slow boot

How do deactivate plymouth boot screen?