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Linux optimization tricks

In this article, I will record all the little tricks I found to optimize the performances of my linux machine.

How to control linux swapping tendancy

Parameter used to control this behavior :

/proc/sys/vm/swappiness

On my own computer it's value is 60. As I want to avoid swapping, I decrease this value to 10. For that you have 2 possibilities :

1. one shot command that will be lost after a reboot : "echo 10 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness"
2. modify sysctls files : for example add vm.swappiness to /etc/sysctl.conf file - it will be applied after each boot

Changing linux cache behavior

/proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure

By default the value of this parameter is 100. Under this value the system will prefer to retain inode in memory than block cache. Try with 50, the gain is quite huge.

Some Links on the same subject

rudd-o.com/en/linux-and-free-software/tales-from-responsivenessland-why-linux-feels-slow-and-how-to-fix-that