Boot Order of Operation & Timing on a New WPSD Installation
This document describes the order of operation once a fresh WPSD SD Card is inserted into a device and boots up. This helps set expectations when installing WPSD on a fresh SD Card…
Chronological Boot-Up Order
-
Generate new SSH keys; resource-intensive; takes time on weak hardware.
-
Auto-expand SD Card/file system to use all available space.
- Auto-reboot.
-
If ‘
/boot/WPSD_Config_*.zip’ configuration backup is found, restore. If not, skip to step 4. -
If ‘
wpa_supplicant.conf’ is found in ‘/boot/’, apply Wi-Fi settings. If not, skip to step 5.- Auto-reboot.
-
If hardware is a first-generation RaspberryPi Zero-W (rev. 1.1, the slow one with one CPU-core), apply special configuration settings for dashboard access; resource-intensive; takes time. Otherwise, all other hardware skips to step 6.
-
Final boot-up complete; dashboard running & ready to configure.
Testing and Timing the Boot Order of Operation
Since the old and frankly under-powered RaspberryPi Zero W (rev. 1.1, single-core CPU…slow!!!) is very popular amongst WPSD installations; and because this particular device requires an additional step (step #4) unlike other models, I’ve used a few of them to determine the elapsed time for all of the above steps on a new installation…
Variables and results:
wpa_supplicant.conf’ was placed in ‘/boot/for automatic Wi-Fi setup.- SD Card was a new 8 GB, U3 (UHS Speed Class 3) type.
- From power-up to the time I could access the dashboard, elapsed time was approximately 13 minutes.
- This test ran step #’s 1, 2, 4, 5 before #6 was ready.
Bonus Notes
When applying any configuration changes in WPSD, quite a bit happens “under-the-hood” to save and activate your requested configuration changes. Using the hardware above, I’ve timed this operation as well…
Variables and results:
- Fresh installation from above; accessed the configuration page…
- Entered my basic information:
- Callsign
- Entered frequency
- Selected modem type
- Changed timezone to
America/Central - Changed time format to 12-hour
- Enabled mode DMR (only)
- Selected display-type to OLED Type-3 and enabled OLED
- Always Active
- Scroll
- Clicked “Apply Changes”
- From clicking “Apply Changes” to the auto-reload of the configuration page, elapsed time was approximately 1 minute, 15 seconds.
An additional RaspberryPi Zero W (rev. 1.1, single-core CPU) benchmark: a fully-configured hotspot takes approximately 1.5 minutes from initial boot-up to a usable hotspot.
Minor Editorial
Since releasing WPSD in about 2020 or so, I have written in many places, that the first-gen. RaspberryPi Zero W (rev. 1.1, single-core CPU) runs the WPSD dashboard and web components very slowly. Additionally, I wrote WPSD specifically for more-powerful, multi-core CPU hardware.
However, and surprisingly, ~15% of WPSD installations, are on this slow platform!!! 😆 I am duly impressed that thousands of users leveraging this under-powered platform are gluttons for punishment. 😉
And as I’ve mentioned in many other places/writings, the Pi Zero 2 is exponentially faster and more enjoyable to use with WPSD; especially for its low-cost.