postponing ntpd start
Yet another Linux hint:
Because ntpd (Network Time Protocol Daemon) takes some time to synchronize with the time server, I don't start it on boot:
$ sudo /sbin/chkconfig ntpd off
But I do start it later on, as a background process, so I can go ahead and log in before it finishes. One could do this with any startup procedure that slows you down.
## Line from /etc/rc.local
nohup /etc/init.d/ntpd start > /dev/null 2>&1 &