New to Linux/KDE, Any good optimization, best practices tips?

[txhammer68]

Built a new pc over the summer and thought i would try linux after wiping win 8 from hdd i proceeded to try Ubuntu Gnome flavor, didn't like the Apple OS feel to it so i tried Mint KDE, gotta say I love the flex-ability of the kde interface!! when the latest LTS cameout got tired of waiting for Mint and installed Kubuntu LTS 14...great distro also!

So i've been reading on ways to optimize my setup for best performance (dangerous) and wanted to get yours opinions on my setup

Not a big gamer at least not on linux, so i am pretty happy with the open source video driver, the ATI catalysts drivers didn't seem as stable to me, any thoughts on which is better??

I made some mods to fstab and some kernel options for the radeon OSS driver, must say the system is rock solid and way faster than windows...

here is my inxi -F
System: Host: DigiServer Kernel: 3.15.6-031506-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: KDE 4.13.3 Distro: Ubuntu 14.04 trustyMachine: System: ASUS product: All Series
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: Z87-PLUS version: Rev 1.xx Bios: American Megatrends version: 2004 date: 06/03/2014
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-4670K CPU (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx)
Clock Speeds: 1: 3473.843 MHz 2: 3400.00 MHz 3: 3516.078 MHz 4: 3499.875 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV770 [Radeon HD 4850]
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1080@60.0hz, 1920x1080@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV770 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3
Audio: Card-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV770 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4850/4870] driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.15.6-031506-generic
Network: Card: Intel Ethernet Connection I217-V driver: e1000e
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex:
Drives: HDD Total Size: 4120.8GB (41.5% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: Corsair_Force_GT size: 120.0GB
2: id: /dev/sdb model: ST4000DM000 size: 4000.8GB
Partition: ID: / size: 94G used: 13G (14%) fs: ext4 ID: /boot size: 237M used: 170M (76%) fs: ext2




FSTAB contents

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
/dev/mapper/kubuntu--vg-root / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=8dafb81d-c2ce-4b1d-8605-a49e6fedae59 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=DB9B-EAE0 /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1
/dev/mapper/kubuntu--vg-swap_1 none swap sw 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs size=2048M,defaults,noatime,nodiratime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/spool tmpfs size=1024M,defaults,noatime,nodiratime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs size=1024M,defaults,noatime,nodiratime,mode=1777 0 0
UUID=09024aa9-fcba-453b-844b-d1f2ffc5dfc2 /media/data ext4 defaults,noatime,nodiratime 0 2
/media/data/cmt/Games/Mame/mame0.149-roms-full.iso /media/Mame-ROMS iso9660 loop,ro,auto 0 0

[claydoh]

Hehe, if it feels and runs fine, just run with it

Welcome to KFN, btw


With your video card, it is likely that the open drivers are more stable and less troublesome, heck I don't even think that AMD even support that card with Catalyst drivers anymore, anyway. At least not with new drivers.

About the only universal tip I can suggest is to set up your partitions to have a separate /home. This will make it easy to restore your user settings and data as you won't have to lose that if you have to reinstall the OS, as you only would have to format your root ("/").

Hafe fun!!!

[kiraitachi]

Hi Im a freak at getting my OS optimized to the max, so here I will give you a some quick hints:

*Remove any software you might not use (kmail, torrent client, IRC chat, etc) by doing "sudo apt-get purge 'program-name'" and then doing "sudo apt-get --purge autoremove".

*Install preload, here some quick info: preload is a program written by Behdad Esfahbod which runs as a daemon and records statistics about usage of programs using Markov chains; files of more frequently-used programs are, during a computer's spare time, loaded into memory. This results in faster startup times as less data needs to be fetched from disk. preload is often paired with prelink.

* Show Hidden Startup Apps:
"sudo sed -i "s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g*" /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop"

with that you can disable autostart apps.

* Change Swappiness Value
1. Run terminal
2. Enter following line to see current swappiness value
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
(default value in Ubuntu for swappiness is 60)
3. Open file /etc/sysctl.conf in a text editor, I did
kate /etc/sysctl.conf
4. Enter the following parameter
# Decrease swappiness value
vm.swappiness=10
5. Save the file and restart the computer


Swappines will make your computer use more RAM and less SWAP since RAM is faster than SWAP.