Ubuntu
is pretty snappy out-of-the-box, but there are some ways to take better
advantage of your system’s memory and speed up the boot process. Some of these
tips can really speed things up, especially on older hardware.
In
particular, selecting a lightweight desktop environment and lighter
applications can give an older system a new lease on life. That old computer
that struggles with Ubuntu’s Unity desktop can provide decent performance for
years to come.
Install Preload
Preload
is a daemon – a background service, in other words – that monitors the
applications you use on your computer. It learns the libraries and binaries you
use and loads them into memory ahead of time so the applications start faster.
For example, if you always open LibreOffice and Firefox after starting your
computer, preload will automatically load each application’s files into memory
when your computer starts. When you log in and launch the applications, they’re
start faster.
Preload
isn’t installed by default on Ubuntu, although some distributions do include it
by default.Make a point of installing it.
Control Startup
Applications
Applications
can automatically start when you log into Ubuntu. Packages can automatically
add their own autostart entries – for example, install Dropbox and you’ll
likely have it automatically starting with your desktop. If you have quite a
few of these entries – or a slower system – this can make your desktop take
longer to appear. You can control these startup applications from the Startup
Applications dialog.
Ubuntu
hides most of the system’s default autostart entries from this dialog. To view
them, run the following command in a terminal:
sudo sed -i ‘s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g’
/etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop
This
command modifies each autostart file and changes the “NoDisplay” parameter from
“true” to “false,” making each entry appear in the list. After running this
command, restart the Startup Applications dialog and you’ll see more options.
Don’t
disable an autostart entry unless you understand what it does. For example, if
your computer doesn’t have Bluetooth hardware, you can disable the Bluetooth
Manager applet – but don’t disable Ubuntu One if you use it.
You
should disable entries by unchecking their check boxes instead of clicking the
Remove button. If you need to re-enable an entry later, you can re-enable its
check box.
Use a Lighter Desktop
Environment
If you’re using older
hardware that struggles with Ubuntu’s default Unity desktop environment, you
may want to use a lighter desktop environment. Good options includeLXDE, XFCE –
or even something like Xmonad, if you want a super-minimal
environment. These options are just scratching the surface of the available
lightweight desktop environments.
Use
Lighter Applications
Along with a lighter desktop
environment, more lightweight applications can increase the performance of an
older, slower system. For example, if you’re typing up the occasional text
document in LibreOffice Writer, why not try Abiword instead? It has less
features, but it’s faster.
If you’re using Mozilla
Thunderbird or GNOME Evolution for your email, you might try Sylpheed, a more
lightweight graphical email program. You’ll find lightweight alternatives for
most programs you use – just give it a Google. You can even ditch graphical
applications entirely and do everything with terminal applications – you’ll
find a lot of terminal-based alternatives, too.
Reduce
Boot Menu Delay
If you have multiple
operating systems installed, Ubuntu displays the GRUB boot loader menu for 10
seconds when you start your computer. After 10 seconds, it automatically starts
your default boot entry. If you normally wait for Ubuntu to select the default
boot entry, you can reduce this timeout and take precious seconds off your boot
process.
To modify this setting, open
the /etc/default/grub file in a text editor:
gksu gedit /etc/default/grub
Change the value of
GRUB_TIMEOUT in the file to a lower number. If you set the timeout to something
extremely low – say, 1 second – you can access the boot menu by continually
pressing the arrow keys or Escape key while your computer boots.
Save the file and run the
following command to apply your changes:
sudo update-grub2
You can also modify this
setting – and many other GRUB2 settings — with Grub-Customizer.
Tune
Swappiness
The swappiness value controls
the Linux kernel’s tendency to swap – that is, move information out of RAM and
onto the swap file on the disk. It accepts a value between 0 and 100.
·
0: The kernel will avoid swapping process out of physical memory
and onto the swap partition for as long as possible.
·
100: The kernel will aggressively swap processes out of physical
memory and onto the swap partition as soon as possible.
Ubuntu’s default swappiness
value is 60. If you find that Ubuntu is swapping processes out to disk when it
shouldn’t be, you can try a lower value – say, 10.
To temporarily change the
swappiness value to 10, use the following command:
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10
This change will be lost when
your system restarts. If you want to preserve the value between boots, edit the
/etc/sysctl.conf file:
gksu gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
Look for vm.swappiness in the
file and change its value. If it doesn’t exist, add it to the end of the file
on a new line, like so:
vm.swappiness=10
Save the file after making
the change.
