Make Linux faster, lighter and more powerful

[Was_Just19]

I've switched the swapiness to 3. I'll let you know, if there is any noticeable difference.
If you discover another place to set it, let us know. Okay?

There was an old thread on this subject but I guess it is long since gone.
I do not have any record of it sorry.

From June 2007
http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/200706/page07.html

Some further links that may be of interest

http://rudd-o.com/en/linux-and-free-software/tales-from-responsivenessland-why-linux-feels-slow-and-how-to-fix-that

http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=40241&hl=swappiness

EDIT:  Added info

[Neal ManBear]

With swappiness set to 3, I'm noticing some improvement in speed.

[Was_Just19]

With swappiness set to 3, I'm noticing some improvement in speed.

Where is the improvement most noticeable?

I will look to drop mine from the 10 to maybe 5 ---> 2GB RAM in this PC

[Neal ManBear]

Apps load and respond faster. This is most noticeable in apps like Firefox and OpenOffice Writer, etc.

[Steve161]

Does anyone know how the swappiness value really works?  Although I believe I have noticed an increase in speed going from 60 to 10,
with either value nothing seems to get written to the swap partition.  Does lowering the value stop or decrease some sort of check as to whether swap is needed for an operation?

[Was_Just19]

Does anyone know how the swappiness value really works?  Although I believe I have noticed an increase in speed going from 60 to 10,
with either value nothing seems to get written to the swap partition.  Does lowering the value stop or decrease some sort of check as to whether swap is needed for an operation?

It is explained in this link I posted above
http://rudd-o.com/en/linux-and-free-software/tales-from-responsivenessland-why-linux-feels-slow-and-how-to-fix-that

[Steve161]

Missed that one.  Thanks JohnBoy

[ternor]

Does anyone have any comment about adding the following after the vm.swappiness line?

Code: [Select]

vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

[everge48]

I don't understand the enabling DMA part. Isn't DMA enabled by default ?

Yes, but "Multiple sector I/O" and "Enable drive read-lookahead" are not.

/etc/sysconfig/harddisks

[Joble]

Uh... Wow!  This thread is from '09.  Does it have any bearing on the new BFS Kernel that comes standard on 2010?

[AndrzejL]

Is Concurrency available to us when booting?

If it is available and not enabled which file would require editing?

I just took a chance and added to /etc/rc.d/rc at the top of the script

#
#nextline added by hootiegibbon
CONCURRENCY=shell
set -m

# check a file to be a correct runlevel script
check_runlevel ()

seems to work and as of yet no issue's.

If somebody would like to concur?

Jase

I did the same thing... Following the rest of the steps and will reboot and report the progress or failure

Andy

EDIT: I skipped the KDE / Gnome / Network and Apps speed boost tips. I have used only the memory and boot time boost tips. My system is starting in 1 minute and 2 or 3 seconds from the grub to desktop. I used the mkinitrd tip from the other thread too. Just over 1 minute. Not bad it used to be much more then that. I am not going to mess around with the apps or firefox speed - its fast enough with 33.5 bfs kernel. Well done PClinuxOS Team !

[beta1]

I have a 4GB of ram 2 core AMD machine, didn't expect much but set swappiness to 10 and pressure=50

Some apps in Linux seemed to visually respond quicker but the biggest change I noticed was in Virtualbox running XP, it is definitely snappier.

[everge48]

I have a 4GB of ram 2 core AMD machine, didn't expect much but set swappiness to 10 and pressure=50
Some apps in Linux seemed to visually respond quicker but the biggest change I noticed was in Virtualbox running XP, it is definitely snappier.

According to the link JohnBoy provided with that much ram you could go even lower with swappiness.
http://rudd-o.com/en/linux-and-free-software/tales-from-responsivenessland-why-linux-feels-slow-and-how-to-fix-that