On each new linux installation i apply these little tricks, reducing drive writes, put all the data that is not needed on tmpfs and last but not least reducing the swap utilization.
Linux records information about when files were created and last modified as well as when it was last accessed. so to bypass that and in order to reducing drive writes edit your /etc/fstab
sudo gedit /etc/fstab
and change defaults and/or defaults,relatime to noatime
UUID=d7d863b6-2d5f-4234-9ec0-dfd18e39a844 / ext2 noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
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Put not needed datas in tmpfs (a /tmp in your ram)
add at the end of your fstab these lines :
tmpfs /var/log tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /var/log/apt tmpfs defaults 0 0
You will lose the data in these areas after a reboot but data in /tmp is not a big deal.
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Prevent your system to start swapping (especially if you have a lot of ram)
sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
and add the following line to the end of the file :
vm.swappiness=0
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Special tips for ext3 filesystem :
Use data=writeback and noatime when mounting ext3 partitions in fstab
fstab example :
/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults,data=writeback,noatime 0 1
and
sudo tune2fs -o journal_data_writeback /dev/hda1
data writeback : This is rumoured to be the highest-throughput option. It guarantees internal file system integrity, however it can allow old data to appear in files after a crash and journal recovery.
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now you can reboot you’ll have a faster system