Whether you upgrade Ubuntu or you have a fresh installation, it is possible to see that your system starts to be quite slow after some time. This is normal. The good news is that you can improve Ubuntu performance if you follow the tips below. Unfortunately, many forget about them or do not know them at all. Ubuntu is one of the best Linux options for many but installing it does not mean that you will not have system resource problems.
There are many reasons why the system runs slow. The computer may be too humble, you may have installed too many applications or a simple error might have happened. However, no matter what the problem is, the advice is going to help you improve Ubuntu performance.
Default Grub Load Time
Grub allows ten seconds to change the dual boot OS or time to choose recovery. This is a little too much. Change the boot time. This can be done in many ways, with GUI tools or through the command interface. We recommend that you change the timeout value to around 2 seconds, which would be more than enough.
Start Up Applications
Obviously, you will install applications. Many of the apps that you would add will automatically start when you power the system. This will easily lead towards a computer that runs slow while booting. Take a look at your Startup Applications. See exactly what is loaded. If there are applications that are not necessary at all the startups, you can disable the automatic application. Just remove them.
If there are still many start applications that are activated and you need them, you can delay some of them, so that they start at a later point in time. That frees up boot time resources and the applications will be started. As an example, if you run Dropbox indicator, you can allow it to open 20 seconds after startup.
Using Preload
Preload is a very interesting daemon that will run in the background. It will analyze user behavior and will constantly change applications that are run. Install it, restart the computer and simply forget about it since the program will get the work done for you.
Overheating
Overheating is much more common than you may believe at first glance. It often happens these days. Obviously, a computer that is overheated will run really slow. The CPU fan running at high cycles means that programs will often take a long time to open. You need to make sure that your system does not overheat. If that happens, problems will definitely appear on the long run.
Lighter Application Alternatives
There are many popular Ubuntu apps that are resource heavy. If the computer is low end, you will not want to use them. The good news is that there are various alternates that are available for applications. Just conduct a little research. As an example, instead of LibreOffice Writer, you could use AbiWord. Monitor resource usage and try to find alternatives for the programs that take in too much.
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