Under normal conditions, Ubuntu may be quite slow to start-up, but the start-up time can be decreased to a good extent by a number of well known tweaks. So, let us cover few tweaks that trigger Ubuntu’s faster start-up.
Reduce Swappiness
Usually the default setting for swap space is 60 on most laptops, but it can be lowered to 10 or 20, so as to reduce the number of write/read cycles on the hard disk. It is quite an easy way to reduce swappiness in Ubuntu and this tweak works amazingly well on netbooks that come with solid state drives.
Here are the steps.
Type the command: sudo sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10
Add this line – vm.swappiness=10 to /etc/sysctl.conf
And that’s it, you’re done with it!
Check the Start-up Applications
For those using Gnome for desktop manager, you’ll find option to select the particular applications that get trigerred soon after you login.
Go to System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications
Now, analyze the unwanted programs that you don’t need to start off right after booting-up. Accordingly, uncheck the undesirable programs. For example, you may want to disable the Evolution Alarm Notifier if you use something else for setting alarms.
Likewise programs like UME Desktop Launcher, Remote Desktop server, UNR Launcher etc aren’t really needed at start-up, so just uncheck them.
Caution: You need to uncheck the programs – don’t remove them!
Suggested Reading
February 3, 2010
Smartphones