MaximumHoyt

I'm always looking for ways to speed up my computer, especially when it comes to the boot process and loading applications. A good overall discussion or improving system performance is at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Maximizing_Performance, just remember that it focuses on the ArchLinux distro, not the Mandriva (now Mageia) distro I use.

READAHEAD
A useful utility is readahead. According to its manpage, readahead populates the page cache with data from a file so that subsequent reads from that file will not block on disk I/O. On my Mandriva 2101.2 system, the default installation of readahead places a default file at /var/lib/readahead/default.early. To create custom files based on your system, you should reboot the system and pause the GRUB menu and add the following to the command line.

init=/sbin/readahead-collector

This will examine your system as it boots and create a list of what files are to be loaded in the order that they are loaded.

The configuration file is found…

Back in the early days of Linux, the changes to the OS were so dramatic that even when updating withing the same distro, in-place point release updates were problematic enough and it was always recommended that a major version release be done from scratch. There were just too many major changes to the underlying subsystems and package naming conventions. Doing an in-place update was just asking for trouble.

Modern distros have matured quite a bit although there are occasionally some major subsystem changes being made. Yet it's never been easier to do an in-pace major version upgrade.

I just did the upgrade on several Mageia3 systems and the results were consistent and satisfactory, not to mention simple.

Step 0.

Always backup critical information. Have a Mageia3 recovery disc on hand.

From GUI

Step 1.

$ sudo mgaapplet-upgrade-helper --new_distro_version=4

Done.


From CLI

Step 1.

Fully update the packages you now have installed.

$ sudo urpmi --auto-update --auto -v


Step 2.

Remove all …