Quoting richard lucassen (mailinglists@???):

> No. When ISC ntp is started is runs ntpdate first. When you have a
> network problem, the boot process will wait until ntpdate times out.
> Then, ntpd starts and is not able to resolve the servers from ntp.conf.
> That takes a few minutes. The OpenNTP manpage says:
>

>      -s Try to set the time immediately at startup, as opposed to
> slowly adjusting the clock.  ntpd will stay in the foreground for up to
> 15 seconds waiting for one of the configured NTP servers to reply.

>
> I haven't tried the -s option yet but 15 secs sounds better than a few
> minutes. When you have a well working hwclock, you don't need the
> option of course.

OK, thanks for the comprehensive comparison. Oddly enough, I don't have
my regular Linux workstation around at the moment, and cannot recall how
I usually resolve this; probably mostly by almost never booting. (Why
shutdown when you can suspend?)