Arch Linux

ermin

Member

Registered: 2009-02-21

Posts: 9

Performance tips and tricks

Do you have some tips and tricks to improve performance of your system ? Than share them with everyone else!
I'll start:

Use deadline I/O scheduler:

echo deadline > /sys/block/hda/queue/scheduler

I had the problem that pacman was really slow. Installing/querying/updating... a package took up to 5 minutes. During that time the rest of the system was noticeably slower. Using deadline really helped. Could have something to do with my filesystem ext3. Here and here are a few more infos about it.

ammon

Member

Registered: 2008-12-11

Posts: 413

Re: Performance tips and tricks

You could have /var on another partition. Like I do. I user reiserfs for /var. Noticeably  faster pacman. Next, my /tmp is in ram. You have both tutorials in wiki.

Barrucadu

Member

From: York, England

Registered: 2008-03-30

Posts: 1,158

Website

Re: Performance tips and tricks

I've had better luck with the cfq scheduler than deadline.

Add "elevator=cfq" to your GRUB kernel line.

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Website | Blog

The Arch Hurd Project

szymon_g

Member

Registered: 2008-11-24

Posts: 36

Re: Performance tips and tricks

vm.swappiness=1
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=10

in /etc/sysctl.conf
old, popular trick- but it seems to work for me (or is it just placebo?)

daf666

Member

Registered: 2007-04-08

Posts: 470

Website

Re: Performance tips and tricks

1. Use x64

2. I remember this gave me a nice X performance boots, kept it in Screen section ever since:
Option         "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"

3. Always disable all animations in gnome configuration editor

4. Keep in DAEMONS line only what is necessary

andre.ramaciotti

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2007-04-06

Posts: 649

Re: Performance tips and tricks

I've had better luck with the cfq scheduler than deadline.

Add "elevator=cfq" to your GRUB kernel line.

Isn't cfq the default scheduler?

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(lambda ())

flamelab

Member

From: Athens, Hellas (Greece)

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2,160

Re: Performance tips and tricks

1. Use BFS scheduler. [fixed]
2. Use ext4
3. Use x86_64.

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(Hardware)

4. Buy an Intel SSD.

Last edited by flamelab (2009-09-19 22:45:10)

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: Performance tips and tricks

I've had better luck with the cfq scheduler than deadline.

Add "elevator=cfq" to your GRUB kernel line.

Isn't cfq the default scheduler?

Yes it is

I've seen somewhere (can't remember where) that the deadline scheduler may be a bit better for people with sata hard disks with ncq.
Reason: having ncq and the cfq scheduler trying to reorder requests to optimize performance may not be the best option, makes some sense but I don't know about actual performance, I have used cfq, deadline and now using noop and although things seems to improve a little with deadline/noop it may very well be just placebo effect

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R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

absolutezero1287

Member

Registered: 2008-11-13

Posts: 133

Re: Performance tips and tricks

1. Use BFS
2. Use ext4
3. Use x86_64.

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(Hardware)

4. Buy an Intel SSD.

Why BFS? (Curious)

flamelab

Member

From: Athens, Hellas (Greece)

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2,160

Re: Performance tips and tricks

1. Use BFS
2. Use ext4
3. Use x86_64.

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(Hardware)

4. Buy an Intel SSD.

Why BFS? (Curious)

Check here http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=79398 I mean the scheduler, not the filesystem.