Bootchart provides a shell script to be run by the kernel in the init phase. The script will run in background and collect process information, CPU statistics and disk usage statistics from the /proc file system. The performance data are stored in memory and are written to disk once the boot process completes. The boot log file is later processed using a Java application which builds the process tree and renders a performance chart in different formats (png, svg, eps). After installation, to run bootchartd; a) if you run a huge kernel or custom kernel without initrd: append the following boot option: init=/sbin/bootchartd b) If you run a kernel using initrd: Run the script mkchartd with proper options and append to lilo configuration file a new entry for bootchart specifying: initrd /boot/initrd.chart.gz Remember to run lilo after applying changes.