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View Full Version : Optimize Ubuntu 8.04 for Speed - Speed up Hardy Heron!



sharks
July 6th, 2008, 10:02 AM
If HH is fast enough in your system dont tell me. this is for users whose HH system is slow.

So what if Ubuntu is a fast operating system?... There is always room for some more tweaking... and I am talking here about some aspects that are NOT useful for the end-users (yes YOU, the regular Ubuntu user). The hacks presented in this guide will greatly improve the overall performance of your Ubuntu 8.04 Linux OS.

WARNING: Please follow the instructions below very carefully, in the order in which they are listed and reboot your machine after each one. It is also possible to do them all at once, but rebooting after each one is much safer. Why? Because if your system won't work properly at a certain point of the tutorial, you'll know what's the last thing you did and you can revert back to the initial configuration. I've applied all these tweaks on three (3) different configurations (with SATA and IDE hard drives) with success!

This one will have it.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Optimize-Ubuntu-8-04-for-Speed-86405.shtml

madjr
July 6th, 2008, 10:54 AM
thanks, but hardy is already fast enough for me (even on my old pc with 256mb ram)

billgoldberg
July 6th, 2008, 11:01 AM
It seems some of the steps are breaking peoples installs.

So use caution.

Most of the article seems to be about a faster boot up time.

Not something I'm interested in.

K.Mandla
July 6th, 2008, 02:08 PM
Nice article. There are a lot more things you can do to improve Hardy's speed though.

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/howto-set-up-hardy-for-speed/

An apology for the shameless self-promotion there.

By the way, that /etc/fstab adjustment puts noatime and nodiratime together on the drive assignment line, but picking noatime includes nodiratime, so it isn't needed. Just thought I should mention it. ... :)

oldos2er
July 7th, 2008, 01:49 AM
"http://news.softpedia.com/news/Optimize-Ubuntu-8-04-for-Speed-86405.shtml"

sysv-rc-conf is much better at configuring services than Ubuntu's services menu. Also, I would backup each file before altering it; and where it says to use "sudo gedit ...", you should use "gksudo gedit ..." instead.

Sealbhach
July 7th, 2008, 05:19 PM
and where it says to use "sudo gedit ...", you should use "gksudo gedit ..." instead.

What's the difference?


.

damis648
July 7th, 2008, 05:22 PM
What's the difference?


.

By gksudo he means gksu. This is the proper command... and the only difference between gksu and sudo is that sudo prompts for password in the terminal and gksu prompts in the GUI.

oldos2er
July 7th, 2008, 05:50 PM
See http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/graphicalsudo

gigabyte05
July 18th, 2008, 05:04 PM
Thanks I need this tutorial

Jumpmasterrt
August 2nd, 2008, 06:16 AM
Do these modifications make the ENTIRE system faster or just the boot up? I'm finding that I boot just fine but programs (even gedit) take a bit of time to load.

Masoris
August 2nd, 2008, 07:02 AM
These tweak is good, but dangerous. Especially "data=writeback" tweak is the most.

If you change your ext3 partition setting to Writeback. You can feel your hard disk much more faster when read and write small files. But when you power off accidentally you could lost data. In my experience, I lost data for ubuntu boot after few times of accidentally power off, so I had to reinstall Ubnutu. :(

Tom--d
August 2nd, 2008, 09:04 AM
These tweak is good, but dangerous. Especially "data=writeback" tweak is the most.

If you change your ext3 partition setting to Writeback. You can feel your hard disk much more faster when read and write small files. But when you power off accidentally you could lost data. In my experience, I lost data for ubuntu boot after few times of accidentally power off, so I had to reinstall Ubnutu. :(

I've done the tweak but I'm on a Laptop. And when the mains gos out (which it never does) my battery will kick in.
I haven't done a hard shutdown in ages.

K.Mandla
August 2nd, 2008, 12:59 PM
These tweak is good, but dangerous. Especially "data=writeback" tweak is the most.

If you change your ext3 partition setting to Writeback. You can feel your hard disk much more faster when read and write small files. But when you power off accidentally you could lost data. In my experience, I lost data for ubuntu boot after few times of accidentally power off, so I had to reinstall Ubnutu. :(
I don't know that data=writeback is any more "dangerous" than any other file system setting. You could scan the original thread describing the tweak, two years ago, and see if it's any help.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=107856

I don't think any filesystem or setting is 100-percent proof against data loss in an accidental power-off. No matter what you use, there's always the chance something will be lost.

issueperson
August 7th, 2008, 03:04 PM
I don't know that data=writeback is any more "dangerous" than any other file system setting. You could scan the original thread describing the tweak, two years ago, and see if it's any help.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=107856

I don't think any filesystem or setting is 100-percent proof against data loss in an accidental power-off. No matter what you use, there's always the chance something will be lost.

What if I told you that increasing your journaling could speed up your system?

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-fs8.html#4

and if you want to tweak your ext3 (experienced users only): http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-305871-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html

K.Mandla
August 16th, 2008, 01:55 PM
What if I told you that increasing your journaling could speed up your system?
Your link doesn't seem to work.

Either way, you'd have to show me a lot to convince me that an old machine -- and by that I mean pre-Pentium III, just so we're on the same page, with commensurate hardware -- will get a speed burst by increasing the workload between no journaling and journaling.

binbash
August 16th, 2008, 05:45 PM
totally crap howto.How can you talk about speed even you do not touch the kernel?If you want speed, you have to compile your own kernel.

issueperson
August 16th, 2008, 07:15 PM
Your link doesn't seem to work.

Either way, you'd have to show me a lot to convince me that an old machine -- and by that I mean pre-Pentium III, just so we're on the same page, with commensurate hardware -- will get a speed burst by increasing the workload between no journaling and journaling.

Sorry about the bad links, I think they are fixed now (worked for me).

As far as speed goes, this is the first time I have ever used full journaling. I have not noticed any speed difference and my drive is pretty safe if it ever goes down.

But for numbers, look at the link provided. Actual numbers are given.

K.Mandla
August 17th, 2008, 12:05 AM
Cool, thanks. I'll check it out after work today. :)

K.Mandla
August 17th, 2008, 11:44 PM
Interesting. I'll have to try it out. It looks like the best speed improvements were for servers trying to handle heavy disk access, which makes sense. I'll test it out on my own machine and see what results I can get. Thanks! :D

mike1234
August 17th, 2008, 11:54 PM
Disabling Bluetooth and Britty in services helps a little. I only use Compiz Fusion once in awhile because it's such a power hog. I have a decent Nvidia 256 meg card but I really notice a difference not running Compiz. Tweaks are asking for trouble in my opinion. Ubuntu runs just fine for me as is. Why risk breaking your system?

M.

K.Mandla
August 18th, 2008, 12:27 AM
Tweaks are asking for trouble in my opinion. ... Why risk breaking your system?

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
;)

mike1234
August 18th, 2008, 12:30 AM
;)

Poets smoke crack. You know that don't you? :lolflag:

M.

empty_tank
August 18th, 2008, 12:24 PM
As far as speed goes, this is the first time I have ever used full journaling. I have not noticed any speed difference and my drive is pretty safe if it ever goes down.



I've been using data=writeback before I read your post about data=journal and I also noticed no difference in speed. Thanks for the tweak.

vietanh
September 4th, 2008, 02:54 PM
totally crap howto.How can you talk about speed even you do not touch the kernel?If you want speed, you have to compile your own kernel.

My computer is Laptop IBM ThinkPad T23. Cam you guide me for recompiling the kernel for Ubuntu 8.04? Thank you very much.

K.Mandla
September 8th, 2008, 02:38 PM
My computer is Laptop IBM ThinkPad T23. Cam you guide me for recompiling the kernel for Ubuntu 8.04? Thank you very much.
If your T23 is like this (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=migr-4ytg43), then you can probably use most of the settings here (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/howto-16-second-boot-on-550mhz-celeron-with-crux/). Here's a howto for rebuilding Ubuntu's kernel (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=56835), and you might find a few tips here (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/finally-grub-to-gnome-in-under-a-minute/).

The real difficulty in recompiling a kernel is making sure you disable the hardware you don't have, don't use and don't need, without disabling something that you do have, use or need. Since every machine is different, it gets a little tricky. Be prepared to start from scratch, in case you build something irrecoverable.

But otherwise, binbash is right. The best speedups come from trimmed kernels. There really is no substitute.

bp1509
September 8th, 2008, 05:38 PM
d

K.Mandla
September 8th, 2008, 10:58 PM
Those are good times. What kind of hardware are you using?

bp1509
September 8th, 2008, 11:43 PM
d