real 0m23.517s
user 0m0.182s
sys 0m0.065s
[user@dom0 ~]$ time qvm-start alpha
real 0m23.801s
user 0m0.191s
sys 0m0.056s
[user@dom0 ~]$ time qvm-start alphax
real 0m32.831s
user 0m0.193s
sys 0m0.059s
starting with debug turned on takes 46 seconds. it shows a console window with
SeaBIOS
Machine UUID
Booting from ROM...
Probing EDD...
15 seconds for the console window to come up, with the first 3 lines
8 seconds later for Probing EDD to come up
23 seconds after that for the VM to start and the console window to go blank.
Forgot the hardware.
i7-6700, 64gigs ddr4, supermicro c7z170-sq, onboard intel graphics.
will play with this more and get back to you.
turns out the qvm-pref debug doesnt matter in boot time. its hvm that takes around 40 seconds, and pvh that takes around 25.
a standalone hvm with no os installed took 16 seconds to "start"
this started happening after installing 4.0rc4 over 4.0rc3. had to qvm-prefs the restored vms to pvh. at first i thought it was just the performance hit from mitigating speculation vulnerabilities, but others were reporting better performance in rc4 than rc3.