I found this tip on the tinyme forum/via pclinux, and would like some people with low end boxes to try it out.


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Basically, it should open apps faster.

add these 2 lines to the end of your /etc/sysctl.conf file

vm.swappiness=1
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

Save and restartX ie login again and see if apps open faster especially abiword, gnumeric, iceweasel etc.

If you get problems, you can simply remove the 2 lines.

Not sure what qualifies as a"low end" system, but I modified the sysctl.conf files on two boxes (always looking for more speed). Here are the results:

On an already pretty fast P4 Dell (512 RAM), the test apps (Abiword and KPPP) opened *really* fast. It seems quite noticeably faster than before (but could be subjective).

Where I noticed a distinct difference was on my Dell laptop (P3 256 RAM). Abiword opens much faster (it seems to me). And the dialer too.

I don't know if this would be a relevant result of the added lines, but the apps seem to open without as much hard drive whirring. No clue why that would be (or if it's just an illusion).

On the whole, the files do seem to speed things up.

I have a slow system - an IBM Thinkpad 600. It runs at 233MHz.
Abiword started in 17 secs, but with those two lines it's now about 12 secs.

So yes, it does seem to work - thanks! __{{emoticon}}__

I have been using this for quite some time with no difficulties. Might set it at 10 and 50 for low ram systems.

This worked really well. Noticable difference in performance on my crappy laptop.

Most dramatic with Iceweazle on this Toshiba.

Nice tip, as speed tips are always nice, especially when they actually work. __{{emoticon}}__

would like some people with low end boxes to try it out.

Basically, it should open apps faster.

add these 2 lines to the end of your /etc/sysctl.conf file

vm.swappiness=1
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

Hello 2007
and thanks for the tip!

2GB RAM
antix15-full 64-bit, toram boot option in use
live session, 310Mb rootfs persistence file

I had previously adjusted swappiness (=35 ...then later =10 ...eventually decided to include swapoff boot parameter in saved custom bootline)
but I had never tested altering the vfs_cache_pressure value.

After setting it to 50, iceweasel starts in 2 seconds, vs 8 seconds previously. That's quite a remarkable difference!
I also notice a dramatic speedup when launching Synaptic package manager, bluefish, geany... most gui apps.
Also, at the commandline, apt update seems noticeably faster (might just be coincidence).

Just tried it on my 32bit dual 1.8GHz Atom 1GB ram machine; may have sped it up a little.

An unused (as in first time use on this installation) LibreOffice opened quite quickly, & Iceweasel re opened in reasonable time too.

Edit: Why isn't it a default setting?

Edit: Why isn't it a default setting?

Lack of feedback, testing, etc........ could be the reasoning.
Plus a hectic life.

Time usually tells when something is considered stable enough to be a every day run function.

This thread is a necro thread and feedback is just starting to come in. __{{emoticon}}__

great tip, it works like a charm on my laptop, Libreoffice and Mozilla browser opens faster than before
cpu: Celeron Dual-core t3000 @ 1.80GHz x 2
memory: 4 GIB

rokytnji wrote:This thread is a necro thread and feedback is just starting to come in. __{{emoticon}}__

First time I had seen it as I think I came here only about 3 years ago - still better late than never. __{{emoticon}}__

It's possibly more relevant now than in 2007; low swappiness is one way to reduce 'wear' on an SSD.

Chris

fatmac wrote:Why isn't it a default setting?

If I understand correctly it is not the default setting due to it raising the difficulty to recycle ram space. I think lowering the setting for vfs_cache_pressure causes anything that is cached in the ram harder to overwrite. So to me to me having items cached on a scale of 1-10 what used to be a level 4 on difficulty could be bumped to a level 6 by lowering the vfs_cache_pressure value. Then from my Googleing due to the overwrite difficultly value becoming higher it becomes easier for the programs wishing to recycle the ram space to simply occupy a different (perhaps fresh) chunk of space. Thus I am figuring ram usage would increase.

And if the above brief bit of researching is correct... then it would make sense to me how the program speeds become quicker as more items would be actively using and caching in the ram, which of course is faster to read / write to then the disk. Which seems to also correlate with the mention of reduced hard disk access previously in this thread.

So I would guess that it is set as default as (perhaps in the past? ) the setting was the best balance between active ram usage and cached ram usage.

Please note I could be very easily wrong, as all the information above is my quick interpretation of some quick researching. Please correct me know this is the case.

I am figuring ram usage would increase.

My scenario is root persistence live session, toram boot param, and the following non-default (user-set) iceweasel prefs/values:

browser.cache.disk.capacity = 0
browser.cache.disk.enable = false
browser.cache.disk.max_entry_size = 1 (why not zero? Idunno. I can't recall why I chose this value)
browser.cache.disk.metadata_memory_limit = 1
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled = false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run = false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max = false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value = 1 (why not zero? Idunno. I can't recall why I chose this value)
browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl = false
browser.cache.frecency_experiment = 3
browser.cache.offline.capacity = 0
browser.cache.offline.enable = false
extensions.getAddons.cache.enabled = false
browser.cache.memory.enable = true

so, in this scenario, I wouldn't expect ram usage to increase.
For me, aside from the obvious"installing stuff" and"downloading stuff" the biggest increase (incremental RAM overhead) seems to be from editing large files contained in the squashfs base image.
With each file edited, ya wind up with original file + edited copy in rootfs }} toram
Frequent flattening, via snapshot, is noticeably helpful in this regard.

low swappiness is one way to reduce 'wear' on an SSD

Ah, that's a good point.
FWIW, I've been running without fixed drive(s) mounted at boot for over a year. Usually the fixed drives aren't even cabled. (I guess I'm eliminating drive wear, haha)
USB2 pendrives + toram + 800MHz RAM ...is decently fast.
USB3 pendrives + toram + 1866MHz RAM (not yet my daily driver) is ridiculously fast.
I considered spending $$$ on a small SSD and going the 'frugal install' route but decided"no, that would amount to putting all my eggs in one basket".
Across 4(?) years, none of my dozen or so pendrives has failed (also a couple microSD cards w/ usb adapter).

Why isn't it a default setting?

Catering to, or playing it safe for, users of less capable hardware. That would have been my guess as to 'why?'
Thinking back, I'm wondering whether the 2012 Mint LMDE _did_ tweak these settings. Its live boot sessions were remarkably snappy compared to other distros.