The more you work with non-cloud systems on your own workstation, the slower they get over the years. In the following post, I will show 10 tips on how to make your system faster if you work daily with Linux. These tips are familiar, but a refresher may be helpful.

Keep your system updated.

Updating your Linux system regularly gets you the latest security patches and performance boosts.

Use these commands for updates: For Debian-based systems, run: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade. For Fedora, run: sudo dnf update.

Remove unnecessary packages

When installing new software like Gparted or dbeaver dependencies are also installed. Over time, your system accumulates unnecessary packages through that. You can use sudo apt autoremove or sudo dnf autoremove to clean them up and free up disk space. The command searches for dependencies that are installed but unused.

Optimize Startup Services

If you notice that your system takes a long time to boot. You can reduce boot time by disabling unnecessary startup services. Commands like systemctl allow you to manage these services.

systemctl list-units --type=service to list all services
To disable a service you don't need, use sudo systemctl disable service_name. This will stop it from starting at boot.

Clean Temporary Files

Also, regularly remove temporary files. Use tools like BleachBit or the command sudo rm -rf /tmp/*. This will free up disk space and improve performance.

Monitor System Performance

You can find resource-heavy processes using system monitoring tools. Use htop, glances, or Gnome System Monitor. They will help you spot bottlenecks by showing resource usage.

Optimize Swap Usage

Configuring swap can improve performance, especially on systems with limited RAM. Adjust swappiness value in /etc/sysctl.conf to control swap usage (e.g., vm.swappiness=10).

Use Lightweight Applications

If you need to save resources, use lightweight alternatives to heavy tools. For example, use FeatherPad instead of LibreOffice Writer for simple text editing tasks.

Filesystem Maintenance

Regularly check and maintain your filesystem using tools like fsck and tune2fs. For example, sudo fsck -f /dev/sdX can check and repair a specific filesystem.

Enable Firewall

It's not a money-saving tip, but security is vital. To boost security and performance, enable and configure a firewall. Use ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall) to manage firewall settings easily (sudo ufw enable). Enabling the firewall can block unwanted network traffic. This may improve network performance.

Optimize Disk I/O

Improve disk I/O performance by using appropriate mount options and filesystems. For example, using the noatime option in /etc/fstab can reduce disk writes. Why /etc/fstab ? The /etc/fstab file lists disk drives and partitions. It includes how to mount them at boot. Edit this file to add mount options that optimize disk performance. One such option is noatime. The noatime option tells the system not to update the access time (atime) of files every time they are read. By default, Linux updates the atime attribute on every file read. This involves writing metadata to the disk. Disabling this update (with noatime) improves disk I/O. It reduces writes, which helps systems with high read activity.

Thanks for taking the time and hope you have a great day!

10 Tips for daily Linux Users to improve System performance, Optimizing Boot time and make legacy systems faster

Linux, optimization

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