Disable unnecessary system services
Removing unnecessary system service can help you to gain faster booting time.
1. Open Mint menu, type “startup” and press Enter.
2. Click “Application Autostart” and disable services you don’t need.
Decrease the swap use
This is especially noticeable on computers with relatively low RAM memory (1 GB or less): they tend to be far too slow in Linux Mint, and Linux Mint accesses the hard disk too much. Luckily, this can be helped.
On the hard disk there’s a separate partition for virtual memory, called the swap. When Mint uses the swap too much, the computer slows down a lot. Mint’s inclination to use the swap, is determined by a setting. The lower the setting number, the longer it takes before Mint starts using the swap. On a scale of 0-100, the default setting is 60. Which is much too high for normal desktop use, and only fit for servers.
– Check your current swappiness setting:
Menu – Accessories – Terminal
Type (use copy/paste to avoid errors):
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
Press Enter.
The result will probably be 60.
– Make sure that you have installed the applications gksu and leafpad:
Menu – Accessories – Terminal
Type (use copy/paste to transport this magical incantation to the terminal):
sudo apt-get install gksu leafpad
Press Enter. When prompted, type your password. Your password will remain entirely invisible, not even dots will show, this is normal. Press Enter again.
– To change the swappiness into a more sensible setting, type in the terminal (use copy/paste):
gksudo leafpad /etc/sysctl.conf
Press Enter.
Scroll to the bottom of the text file and add your swappiness parameter to override the default. Copy/paste the following bold lines:
# Decrease swap usage to a more reasonable level
vm.swappiness=10
– Save and close the text file. Then reboot your computer.
Note: your machine might benefit from an even bigger decrease in swappiness. A useful rule of thumb might be this:
1 GB RAM or more: set swappiness to 10
Less than 1 GB RAM: set swappiness to 5
Preload
Preload learns how applications behave and loads them into memory so the applications will launch quickly on next time.You can install the software with following command in terminal:
sudo apt-get install preload
Press Enter.
