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Fine-tuning a Linux System

What can someone do to fine-tune and streamline a Linux system in order to make optimal and efficient use of limited resources. Here is my take:
  1. Check service configuration - for each runlevel, remove services and daemons that are not needed. CAUTION: Don't turn off any service whose purpose you are not completely aware of.
  2. Turn off automatic software update or schedule it to run less frequently.
  3. Turn off fancy animations and graphics - the eye candy costs ye.
  4. If you heavily use KDE applications, stick to a KDE environment and ditto for Gnome. Since KDE applications commonly use Qt libraries and Gnome apps use GTK+, sticking to one or the other saves you from expending a lot of resources loading both sets of libraries.
  5. Downgrade to less resource hungry desktop environments like Fluxbox, XFCE, or enlightenment.
  6. Upgrade memory; having a lot of memory makes your computer run faster and conserves battery.
  7. For notebooks, monitor the power management scheme. Sometimes cpuspeed and cpufreqd run your notebook at a lower CPU than necessary.

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