strange slowness in launching applications

tano70 · 2020-12-09 16:19:40

Good evening, I have recently installed Arch linux on a sundisk micro sd card, that I start with refind boot manager on a third generation core i7 lenovo X1 Carbon laptop with 8giga of ram. The problem I encounter is the slowness with which it opens some applications, in particular chromium, but also Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird, Libreoffice.Still, the opening of each of these programs is interminable, between 12/13 seconds. I would like to understand what it depends on, since the first installation I had done previously, always on a micro sd card, the opening times of these programs were considerably shorter. Tell me what command to run for to give you more details on the problem.

Trilby · 2020-12-09 16:32:10

tano70 wrote:

... on a sundisk micro sd card

That's almost certainly the cause. All the programs you mentioned need to read a very large number of files to open (particularly firefox). While you've not seen this problem on other sd cards doesn't really argue against it - read times for sd cards varies wildly. If you must use a sd card, you may be interested in preloading the filesystem to RAM if you have sufficient RAM, or preloading specific resource.

The real solution, though, is to get a read disk. Decent disks are cheap now* - why are you just using sd cards?

* I see some listed for $25 USD from respectable brands. I'd invest a bit more if possible, but even a cheapo SSD will be far far better than an SD.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-12-09 16:35:17)

tano70 · 2020-12-09 16:39:12

Thanks for the answer, you are right, but at the moment I find the solution with micro sd card much more convenient as I have the internal disk of the laptop with other linux distributions that I cannot touch and I have no more space. The micro sd is for me the best solution because I insert it in the internal reader of the laptop and it does not give me any problem of clutter or protrusion. If you tell me what commands to type to put the filsystem in ram you would do me something very welcome.

Trilby · 2020-12-09 17:00:38

There are a lot of options - and I don't have first hand experience. A quick web search turned up this (untested, unreviewed) tutorial:
http://reboot.pro/topic/14547-linux-loa … d-boot-it/

That said, if that's really something you want to try, you may be interested in Alpine linux which is really tailored for that type of use. This is effectively an iso (like our installtion iso) which loads to ram before/during boot up, but in Alpine they add an overlay so you can have changes persist across boots. Of course the same steps can be done on Arch, but one of Alpine's installation guidelines is set up for this use case "out of the box" which may be easier to get started with.

There are also packages in the AUR for profile-sync-daemon / anything-sync-daemon which load specific resources if your full system will not fit in ram.

So as I see it (from my non-exitent first-hand experience) there are three general approachs:
1) Boot an iso with an overlay filesystem for saving changes
2) A normal install but load the full root filesystem into ram during boot up (via initramfs)
3) A normal install that preloads specific resources immediately after boot which can be as simple as an system service that does the equivalent of "find ~/.config/ ~/.mozilla ~/whatever-else -type f -exec cat '{}' \+ >/dev/null"

If you have ample RAM (to store your full system), #2 would likely be the simplest and most efficient approach. If not, #2 would not even be viable. In that case, #3 might be simplest to get started with, but I'd probably invest in #1 (and personally I'd probably do that with Alpine).

Note that #1+2 above carry a risk of lost data in case of an unclean / improper shutdown - there's ALWAYS a risk of this with an SD, but it's drastically inflated with these options as and data written to the filesystem only exists in tmpfs until the tmpfs is synced back to the SD at shutdown.

EDIT: and of course another simple option is just to get a better sd card. This always seems like guess and check though as I've not found the "speeds" advertised on the product label to mean much of anything. But if you've used other SDs for similar purposes before and not had as much of a problem, you may just have a particularly bad one at the moment: so any other might be better.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-12-09 17:10:41)

tano70 · 2020-12-09 17:31:10

thanks for the wise advice. I will see better on Alpine linux and I will also evaluate the other alternative methods you suggested. The sd card where I put archlinux and where the programs started much earlier is the same one I am using now, unfortunately the system was compromised and I had to reinstall everything, but obviously something in this new installation did not go the right way, and I find myself a slower system.

GSMiller · 2020-12-10 07:41:55

tano70 please do some research on how to boot your linux partition to ram.
But maybe Arch is not the right distro for you?
But Linux distros can not fix all hardware problems.

Arch Linux

#1 2020-12-09 16:19:40

strange slowness in launching applications

#2 2020-12-09 16:32:10

Re: strange slowness in launching applications

#3 2020-12-09 16:39:12

Re: strange slowness in launching applications

#4 2020-12-09 17:00:38

Re: strange slowness in launching applications

#5 2020-12-09 17:31:10

Re: strange slowness in launching applications

#6 2020-12-10 07:41:55

Re: strange slowness in launching applications

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