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Hi all,

Just some quick tips on what I did on my new Ubuntu 8.10 system. (Related to speeding up the system a little bit)

1 – Boot menu timeout

Edit '/boot/grub/menu.lst' and look for the line starting with 'timeout'. This is the number of seconds the menu system will wait before booting the default operating system. (I set this to 2 seconds.)

2 – Boot Speed

When the boot menu appears select the default Ubuntu boot option and press 'e'.
On the line with 'kernel', press 'e' again. (You're now editing the boot parameters) Press “space” and add the word 'profile'. Press “return” followed by 'b' to boot. Disk access during your boot sequence will now be profiled, which means that subsequent booting should be faster.

3 – Services

Disable the services you don't need by opening the Services window from the System>Administration menu.
I usually disable stuff I don't need like Bluetooth. Be careful not to disable services you rely on. If you don't know what to disable DON'T TOUCH THIS!!!

Services I disabled:

apmd – If your PC/laptop is newer than 2003, you can disable this, as acpi service does everything this one does
atd – scheduler – I use cron, so it's disabled
bluez-utiles – bluetooth – I dont use it
cupsys – Printer management
dns-clean – used for dial up. I use cable
gdomap – this one i have always turned off. I can't remeber why, but it has never affected my system.
hplip – HP printer imaging service.
ifrename – only useful if you have more than 1 wifi and 1 wired network card.
mdamd + mdamd-raid – Only useful for RAID devices.
ppp and ppp-dns – Only useful for dial-up
sudo – used for checking sudo status. After disabling, SU and SUDO still works.

I have disabled some other services, but they are very specific, and work on my Vaio. I won't post them here, in case someone breaks something.

4 – Processes + CPU cycles

If you want to find a process on your system that's using a lot of CPU cycles, then you can terminate the process to get those cycles back. Save all your work, and use the Ubuntu process manager. This is part of the System Monitor tool, and this can be opened from the System>Administration menu.

Do you guys have any other tips that you use in your Ubuntu installation?