I recently updated my Linux kernel from 3.1.10 to 3.5.0. Upon booting with GRUB, I noticed that this kernel (or the initial ramdisk?) takes a much longer time to load (~5-6 s vs. ~1 s with the old kernel) before the rest of the booting process commences. The new kernel image is only about 100 kB larger than the old one and the initrd is pretty much the same size. The method of compression seems to be the same in both cases. So I'm curious: what could be the cause for this significant change in delay? Can this time be reduced?
(By the way: I'm using openSUSE 12.1)
