Slow boot after recent updates (stable) of latest Manjaro (4 feb?). When I hit ESC while booting I can see a message that the system is looking for TPM but times out after 1m30s: (1 of 2) A start job is running for /dev/tpm0
and after that: (1 of 2) A start job is running for /dev/tpmrm0
After a while the booting resumes. Searching online offers a solution that seemed to have helped a lot of others:
sudo systemctl mask dev-tpmrm0.device
Or you can disable TPM in the BIOS. On my system it is enabled (and as far as I know was enabled before the updates) in the BIOS and I would like to have it enabled, so NOT masking it. But it seems something is preventing Manjaro from using TPM. Is there something I can do other than masking dev-tpmrm0.device?
By the way, my disk is encrypted.
[UPDATE] When I disable TPM in BIOS the boot time is indeed normal
thanks,
Richard
I’m afraid my knowledge of TPM and encryption is rather limited but I’m sure someone will come along; to that end it is always good to provide system info:
inxi -zv8
… use the code formatting (the </> button at the top of the Reply window or the three backticks ``` on lines above and below the pasted output.
Note: This output is privacy-filtered using the above command.
Which is what you should do. Manjaro does not support TPM, any more than that we support Secure Boot.
TPM serves no purpose that can also not be attained by way of Free Software means. It is a proprietary technology intended to limit what you can do with the computer that you paid for with your own money.
Mind you, I’m not saying that you cannot use it with Manjaro, but then getting it to work properly is on you. I’m sure that the Arch Wiki will have some good advice on how to set it up — disclaimer: I haven’t verified that.
The matter is a bit more complicated, but TLDR yes, disable it.
Once upon a time like 15-20+ years ago, as WINTEL was ruling the world, they tried to sell a nice idea (just like the case with secure boot). “Hey, why don’t we offload the encryption operations to a dedicated chip? It will be a lot faster and that will save a lot of CPU power”. This worked nice. For a very short time. Shortly after, dedicated encryption instructions began appearing in the cpus (and yes your inxi says you have this too). That meant no more 100% on en/decrypting an encrypted volume. So what happened with the now seemingly purposeless TPM chip…well, the hidden agenda of Microsoft and Intel surfaced and became evident. Licenses, Anticheat in Games, tracking and identifying user, remote control of machines to “protect them in case of theft” (or to follow political dissidents). Such stuff.
Fast forwarding a few decades, nowadays there often isn’t a physical chip anymore. The functionality is included in the firmware - fTPM. Because of course, the OEMs are playing in one team with Microsoft and co. and if MS says it has to be there it will be. It is also a nice way to force sell new hardware - “The new Winbose will not install if you do not have the new version of it and unfortunately your 3 year old PC has only the previous version and of course we cannot update it per firmware update”.
On AMD, since they are the underdog and as such the innovator, this software implementation came first. Unfortunately it was so buggy and that Linus Torvalds himself in his typical style wrote some nice emails and removed it from the linux kernel at some point a couple years ago.
You have intel, so in theory is not problematic (in my case for example i have PTT - Intel Platform trust or something, which is provided through Intel Management engine - the â– â– â– â– that is a mini OS for remote control running behind your main OS which you cannot disable), but is it any good under Manjaro? I mean, you do not care about Microsoft licensing or telemetry, do you?
Performancewise, you can do a simple test with and without
openssl speed -evp aes-128-cbc
And i bet you will not see a difference since aes is in your CPU. Since you are using encryption, test a bit more without, but i am pretty sure your system and disk performance will not be slower.
Thanks everyone for taking the time for helping with my problem. It is clear to me now that I don´t need TPM. I disabled TPM in the BIOS and boot time is back to normal. It is just strange that this boot problem suddenly appeared.
but I’m sure someone will come along; to that end it is always good to provide system info:
