Linux setup on netbook -- article

[dibl]

I ran across this today -- it's pretty comprehensive and I thought it worth sharing:

http://blog.bodhizazen.net/linux/netbook-optimization/

[DeathKitten]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

While that article is geared towards netbooks primarily, I am going to see if any of it would do me some good on my laptop. I also linked my boyfriend to the article, as he's running the ubuntu netbook remix on his netbook.

[dibl]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

The techniques are generally valid for any single-user system, whether desktop, laptop, or netbook. I've been using some of the listed filesystem mount options and the sysctl.conf mods for a long time on my desktop system, as well as my netbook. Of course the improvements are more noticeable on a system that is "stretched" to keep up with the user, like a netbook or older laptop. But this article pulls in some new ones, for me, so I thought there might be news for others, too.

[DeathKitten]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

That part I'm most curious about, especially given that my desktop machine is older and currently on the edge of becoming annoying, is the section about the RAM. Specifically the Mount a /tmp /var/log and /var/tmp in RAM section. Do you know anything about this? The Disadvantages section is the part I'm concerned about, specifically point iii:

Disadvantages:
i – You will loose your logs and when your reboot. This is important if you are trying to debug an application / service / kernel or if you need to perform forensics (on a cracked system).
ii – Your cached pages will be lost when you reboot.
iii – I am not sure what will happen if you fill your RAM, via say burning a DVD, my netbook does not have either a CD or DVD burner =).

Currently my desktop machine has only 1GB of RAM, a one point something GHz processor and the primary hard drive (where my / partition lives) is about 8 years old. I've got 2GB of RAM and a larger/faster hard drive ready to install, for a little bit of a boost for my machine, but I'm waiting for the final release on karmic as I intend to do a fresh install on the new hard drive, in order to switch over to ext4.

The plan right now is install my upgrades in my desktop when karmic comes out, once that's stable I'll back up my data to my desktop and reinstall on the laptop so it can take advantage of ext4 there also.

[dibl]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

I think the primary benefit of the tmpfs mounts is if you have a SSD (solid state disk) -- in that case it stops the extra disk writes for your logs and such, and changes them to memory writes. If you have a hard disk drive, the only performance improvement is going to be the little bit of performance that results from the memory being faster than the hard drive, while the write is occurring. It can't be much.

[DeathKitten]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

I think the primary benefit of the tmpfs mounts is if you have a SSD (solid state disk) -- in that case it stops the extra disk writes for your logs and such, and changes them to memory writes. If you have a hard disk drive, the only performance improvement is going to be the little bit of performance that results from the memory being faster than the hard drive, while the write is occurring. It can't be much.

So, with an older hard drive, if I stick my new RAM in early before the karmic release, it might give me a little extra speed help until I get the new faster hard drive installed? Or am I understanding this wrong?

[dibl]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

Yep -- that's the right idea, DK. The faster hdd will help, too.

BTW, if you find the loss of the logs too risky (like me), you can omit that line, leaving:

tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs noexec,nosuid 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs noexec,nosuid 0 0

[DeathKitten]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

I can honestly say that I don't remember the last time I looked at any of my log files. I probably wouldn't be badly off without them. That said, I am starting to get more experimentally comfortable now that I've got two machines to work with, and do not have to depend upon borrowing someone else's computer to look stuff up when I break things, so those logs might start becoming more important to have soon.

A friend bought me a copy of World of Goo, so I'm going to probably play with that on my laptop tonight... but I will see about doing the RAM install tomorrow and trying at least your suggested alterations about putting stuff into RAM, if not also the log files. We'll see how brave I'm feeling when I do it.

On the topic of the laptop, I may consider Enlightenment as an alternative, since the page you linked does suggest a light weight windows manager for the laptop. It's been a while since I gave E a go. It'll also be fun because then I can really confuse my boyfriend. My panel configuration confuses him, and he's afraid to touch my computer... even though I convinced him to try something linux flavored on his netbook (he has the ubuntu netbook remix on that).

[dibl]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

I put Xfce on my Eee 701/4G and it works well that way -- it's only 660 MHz, so it's too doggy for anything racier. I installed Elive (Development version 1.9.47) on my Toshiba NB205 and I'm very happy with it running E. It runs at 1.66 GHz so it is quite responsive. It's a Debian Lenny distro, but with a 2.6.30 kernel that has very good hardware support. I tried KDE 4 on it, and the response just isn't what I am looking for -- I guess my desktop Kubuntu system kind of spoils me that way.

[DeathKitten]

Re: Linux setup on netbook -- article

My laptop is so much newer and more powerful than my desktop, currently, that it zips zooms and flies with the kde... but if it'll save battery life, it would be awesome to have the option to run something like E