Installing 12.04 to a small SSD

**ac0ax** · October 19th, 2012

Can anyone assist me in installing 12.04 to a 32GB SSD in a laptop with 3GB of ram.

What I mean by assisting is getting the best performance from it. I've been reading a lot post about it but its a clear as mud to noob like myself.

I think what I really need is a walk-though. Step 1..step 2..etc.

**bart.a** · October 23rd, 2012

Can you tell us what your goal is? What hardware have you've got and what do you intend to use it for?

Is it running office related programs or watching movies or mainly using internet based stuff?

**bart.a** · October 23rd, 2012

For performance and longer lifetime of your SSD you need to make some changes to the standard filesystem..
You should choose for the ext4 file system on install by the way because it supports TRIM..

0. partition alignment

This can only be done with a clean system before you install Linux. Make a new primary partition and enter a start sector of at least 2,048 The general rule is that the starting sector must be divisible by 512, but to cater for all variations of SSD page size and filesystem block size, 2,048 is a good idea (and equates to 1MB).

1. fstab

after install open up the terminal (CTRL + T) and run:

Code:

sudo gedit -w /etc/fstab

this should open a text window and you will be able to make changes to the file system. So be carefull.

Then for the SSD device in your system remove 'relatime' if present and add 'noatime,nodiratime,discard' so it looks something like this:

Code:

/dev/sda   /   ext4   noatime,nodiratime,discard,errors=remount-ro 0 1

the 'discard' part activates the TRIM.. the other parts stops updating metadata from being updated every time a file is accessed.

2. schedular

The scheduler helps organise reads and writes in the I/O queue to maximise performance. The default scheduler in the Linux kernel is CFQ (Completely Fair Queuing), which is designed with the rotational latencies of spinning platter drives in mind. So while it works well for standard hard drives, it doesn't work so well when it comes to SSDs.
As CFQ is the default, change SSDs to use deadline by opening up a terminal and running:

Code:

sudo gedit -w /etc/rc.local

Then add the following line for each SSD in your system:

Code:

echo deadline >/sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler

3. swap tmp and applications

Do you have a mechanical drive in your system? Then use a part of it (if you can) to provide for the swap and for temporary files and browser cache. That writes and rewrites a lot of data that you don't realy use longterm but does wear out your SSD.

If you do not have a mechanical drive. Keep a swap partition available, but add the following to the rc.local file:

Code:

sudo gedit -w /etc/rc.local

and add:

Code:

echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

And Linux won't use swap at all unless physical memory is completely filled.

Next, to reduce unnecessary writes to the SSD move the temp directories into a ram disk using the 'tmpfs' filesystem, which dynamically expands and shrinks as needed.

In your /etc/fstab, add the following:

Code:

sudo gedit -w /etc/fstab

Code:

tmpfs   /tmp       tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777   0  0

tmpfs   /var/spool tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777   0  0

tmpfs   /var/tmp   tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777   0  0

tmpfs   /var/log   tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=0755   0  0

the last line discards log files between boots.

That's it.. I found this here.. So thank you Ashton Mills..

Hope this serves your needs..

**geomcd1949** · October 24th, 2012

How do you align partitions (sec. 0) without having the operating system installed?

**snowpine** · October 24th, 2012

Originally Posted by ac0ax

Can anyone assist me in installing 12.04 to a 32GB SSD in a laptop with 3GB of ram.

What I mean by assisting is getting the best performance from it. I've been reading a lot post about it but its a clear as mud to noob like myself.

I think what I really need is a walk-though. Step 1..step 2..etc.

Here is an easy 1-2-3 guide to installing Ubuntu on a SSD:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/...desktop-latest

It is true that there are some optimizations you can make (described by other users in this thread) for a possible slight performance boost, but the default easy install should be fine for 99% of users. Ubuntu is designed to run on SSDs and no additional steps are required.

**bart.a** · October 24th, 2012

Originally Posted by snowpine

It is true that there are some optimizations you can make (described by other users in this thread) for a possible slight performance boost, but the default easy install should be fine for 99% of users. Ubuntu is designed to run on SSDs and no additional steps are required.

It does work fine on SSD and a default install is fine for 99% of the users, but the OP specifically asked for performance tips.. And I believe the default is still based on revolving mechanical disks, also in the ext4 file system.. And even if I'm wrong about that, the tips given result in less write and rewrite actions which extends the SSD's lifetime..