Ubuntu It's already fast, especially if you're coming to Linux from a Windows world. However, why does Ubuntu sometimes respond slower than usual? Is there anything you can do to give it a boost? If you feel your Ubuntu system is running slow, this tutorial outlines some ways to speed up Ubuntu.
1. Clean up temporary files and logs not used by BleachBit or your terminal.
The first step to speeding up your computer is to clean up the junk left behind by daily use. These can be temporary files or log files that can take up significant storage space. When storage space fills up, your system becomes slow.
You can solve this problem with BleachBit.
- install BleachBit Using:
sudo apt install bleachbit
2. Turn on BleachBit of Application List Your own.
3. Choose the file types you want to clean. We suggest everything below. Apt , And journalald , and put temporary files under deep scanning.
4. Click "cleaning" in the upper left.
Using the device
Although BleachBit may be useful in cleaning your system, you may be reluctant to install additional software on your system.
Ubuntu already has all the tools at its disposal to clean itself, but without BleachBit, you'll have to remember how to do these things yourself via the terminal.
- delete Cache and thumbnail folders Used by user-level applications such as the browser and desktop environment:
rm -rf ~/.cache rm -rf ~/.thumbs
Even though you're deleting folders used by your apps, it won't cause any permanent damage. Some things you do regularly may be slow at first as new caches are created, but after that, you'll be cruising along smoothly!
2. Delete Temporary files stored by Package Manager, APT:
sudo apt autoclean && sudo apt clean && sudo apt autoremove
APT sometimes stores old versions of software you've installed. If you have many applications, sometimes their updates can consume a significant amount of storage space without clearing out the old versions. This command sequence eats up a significant amount of that space.
Good to know: We explain to you How to share clipboard data on Android and Ubuntu
2. Use Baobab to determine storage usage.
Ubuntu has a great analysis tool pre-installed to help you determine where your storage is being used most.
Go to Application List and search for Baobab Or “Disk”. Open an app “Disk Usage Analyzer”.
Once you select a drive from the list, Baobab will scan it, then spit out a graph of what's taking up its space.
When you hover your mouse over the graph, you get a visual indicator of the folder you're actually viewing. In my case, since this is a fairly new installation of Ubuntu, the most space is taken up by the system libraries.
If you find a large amount of space being taken up by your home folder in particular, see what you can clear up with this tool. The drop-down panel will help you easily navigate through trouble areas and clearly see how much space they're taking up.
As a general rule, if you're not very experienced, don't touch anything on your system drive that isn't in your home folder. You can easily avoid this by restricting baobab to analyzing your personal folder by selecting it first.
3. Speed up boot time by reducing GRUB timeout
GRUB is a boot loader preinstalled in most Linux distributions, allowing the system to load what it needs to wake up. Modifying its configuration will change the way your system starts up. For example, you can reduce the amount of time the GRUB boot screen appears. If you encounter a startup screen that allows you to select a boot option for a specific number of seconds before switching to the default option, follow these steps to shorten the amount of time you have to wait for a response:
- Start editing Grub configuration Using:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
2. Locate the line. GRUB_TIMEOUT = X , where X It is the time when Set GRUB Currently waiting for your selection.
3. Change that to something like two seconds – enough time to make a decision but also short enough so it's not annoying.
4. Save changes and exit the editor. Update GRUB with:
sudo update-grub
Your changes will be effective upon your next reboot. These instructions only apply if you get a GRUB boot screen that allows you to select an operating system or kernel to boot from. If you boot directly into Ubuntu from the moment the boot screen stops, you won't notice the change.
Tip: Follow this Guide How to edit grub as well as customize it using GRUB Customizer on Linux.
4. Remove useless items from AutoStart
When you boot up Ubuntu, all startup applications launch at approximately the same time the desktop begins loading its graphical interface. During this time, you may notice some performance issues with your system shortly after startup that persist for a while and will likely go away.
To minimize this problem as much as possible, you should either remove a number of startup applications or add a delay so that they are not all competing for system resources the moment you try to wake up.
- Go to the application menu and find Startup Applications PreferencesWhen the entry appears, play it.
- look at me List of programs Which is automatically loaded when you log in to your desktop.
3. Remove those that don't need to be active by selecting them and clicking the button. "Removal" on the left.
5. Improve speed with zRam
zRam creates a compressed swap space in your RAM. When RAM starts to fill up, zRAM will begin compressing some of its contents without requiring swap space on your storage devices.
This is important for two reasons:
- Every storage device on the consumer market (even the super-fast NVME SSD) is slower than RAM, no matter how many huge numbers the marketing team touts. RAM is specifically designed to move massive chunks of data as fast as the clock on the console allows, while storage devices are optimized for storage!
- Having a partition or file on an SSD that is constantly being written to will increase its degradation rate. zRAM can extend the life of your storage device by avoiding swapping.
Fortunately, using zRAM today is easier than ever. It's supported by most modern kernels, and you just need to install a script included in the default repositories to automatically configure it to your computer's specifications. To do this, follow these steps:
- Open Bus Terminal Install the configuration script. zRAM:
sudo apt install zram-config
2. Restart your computer, and zRAM will be turned on automatically.
6. Prioritize your apps with Ananicy
Ananicy is an automatic daemon that runs automatically at startup and gives active programs and services a certain niceness. In Linux, niceness is analogous to Windows process priority. The less "nice" an application is, the higher the priority it will receive.
By setting the quality of apps across your system to levels that align with your priorities as a user, you can end up experiencing more responsiveness from the apps you use while changing very little about your system at a fundamental level. For example, if you're streaming a movie while the update is running, setting the updater to a higher quality level will prioritize the movie you're watching while preventing background elements from disrupting your experience.
Ananicy helps speed up your system using a set of predefined rules that set the quality of applications to levels that allow for a more seamless user experience. In theory, with its default configuration, Ubuntu will feel more responsive right out of the box.
Before we begin, make sure you have make, scheduler, and git installed on your system:
sudo apt install git make scheduletool
Follow the instructions below to install Ananicy:
- Open Bus Terminal Clone the app from GitHub page His own:
git clone https://github.com/Nefelim4ag/Ananicy.git
2. Switch to Guide Just created:
cd Ananicy
3. Fill out the application for Ubuntu Using:
./package.sh debian
4. Install the bundled version of Ananicy with:
sudo dpkg -i ./ananicy-*.deb
The application will be active after the next reboot.
7. Use a different desktop environment
Gnome is great, but it can also be resource-intensive. While you can optimize it to use fewer resources, it can't be as fast as a lightweight environment like XFCE. However, the beauty of Linux is that you're not stuck with Gnome. You can install and use any desktop environment you like on Ubuntu.
Installing XFCE on Ubuntu is as easy as entering the following into the terminal:
sudo apt install xfce4
This will install the version. "essential" From XFCE. If you want to convert it to Xubuntu, use the command:
sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop
When you next log in, you will be able to switch between different desktop environments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Why stick with Ubuntu if there are faster distributions?
answer. Ubuntu offers a complete desktop experience with the largest support community available. Its combination of ease of use and versatility makes it (and its various derivatives) the platform of choice for people coming to Linux for the first time.
Q2. Are there any downsides to using zRAM?
answer. As long as you have a very good CPU that is at least slightly underutilized by your daily activities, zRAM is a great option for reducing how much your system relies on its swap space.
If your CPU is struggling to handle the heavier things you do throughout the day, you may notice that zRAM is actually slowing you down a bit, as it still has to run a compression algorithm to allocate and free up memory from that specific space in system memory.
In such cases, you might be better off purchasing more RAM or getting a more powerful CPU. The former is more feasible in most cases than the latter.
Q3. How many desktop environments can I run?
answer. Many desktop environments come with their own set of pre-installed applications. XFCE, as described in this article, comes with its own entire ecosystem with a separate settings manager. Desktop environments like KDE Plasma have their own program managers and use entirely different graphical libraries from GNOME.
If you plan to run multiple desktop environments in a single distribution, you should keep in mind that one may conflict with the other, especially when it comes to things like appearance settings.
For the best possible experience, it's always cleaner to run one or two desktop environments rather than maintaining an entire repository. In the case of this article, I recommend keeping the default Ubuntu environment around (which will likely work fine if things go wrong elsewhere) and just adding another one.