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#1 2022-11-12 20:06:33

deepforest
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Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Without upgrading hardware;)

Please, post here if you have such tips and tricks.

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#2 2022-11-13 12:49:19

delgado
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Registered: 2022-07-14
Posts: 151  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Hi,

I disabled the spectre CPU-patches.
This is not recommend for e.g. cloud servers running potentially evil virtual machines. My computer is just a desktop.
The arguments are from https://make-linux-fast-again.com

# /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet noibrs noibpb nopti nospectre_v2 nospectre_v1 l1tf=off nospec_store_bypass_disable no_stf_barrier mds=off tsx=on tsx_async_abort=off mitigations=off"
$ sudo update-grub

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#3 2022-11-13 13:29:03

Head_on_a_Stick
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From: London
Registered: 2019-03-24
Posts: 3,125  
Website

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Only mitigations=off is needed. I also do that :-)

Use this to check:

for i in /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/* ; do echo "$(basename $i): $(cat $i)" ; done

I would also recommend disabling all desktop trackers & miners, along with the display manager. And X, but that might just be me.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Improving_performance is a good reference but not everything there will apply to Devuan, for obvious reasons. Devuan is already faster than vanilla Arch anyway big_smile


Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

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#4 2022-11-13 18:09:57

deepforest
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Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Thanks All for replys)

Yes. As i know only mitigations=off in kernels upper 5.15.
So it works.

freeartist@devuan:~$ for i in /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/* ; do echo "$(basename $i): $(cat $i)" ; done
itlb_multihit: KVM: Mitigation: VMX disabled
l1tf: Mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: EPT disabled
mds: Vulnerable; SMT disabled
meltdown: Vulnerable
mmio_stale_data: Unknown: No mitigations
retbleed: Not affected
spec_store_bypass: Vulnerable
spectre_v1: Vulnerable: __user pointer sanitization and usercopy barriers only; no swapgs barriers
spectre_v2: Vulnerable, STIBP: disabled, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
srbds: Not affected
tsx_async_abort: Not affected
freeartist@devuan:~$ 

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#5 2022-11-13 18:20:25

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Devuan is already faster than vanilla Arch anyway big_smile

hey) Its very interesting question! On my second legacy PC i have 3 Linux)

1.Arch(vanilla)
2.Devuan Ceres
3.Artix(no systemd Arch)

The fasted for me is Artix, second is Devuan, third Arch

My second PC, legacy - c2d Q6600, gf9800gtx, 4gb ram

PS i want ask here? What Linux is better for

My first PC, modern - AMD r2600, radeon rx580, 32gb ram

I think may be vanilla Arch? I love play different games old and new)

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#6 2022-11-13 18:33:27

Head_on_a_Stick
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From: London
Registered: 2019-03-24
Posts: 3,125  
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Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

deepforest wrote:

1.Arch(vanilla)
2.Devuan Ceres
3.Artix(no systemd Arch)

The fasted for me is Artix, second is Devuan, third Arch

Which benchmarks are you using? Care to share them?

deepforest wrote:

What Linux is better for

My first PC, modern - AMD r2600, radeon rx580, 32gb ram

I think may be vanilla Arch? I love play different games old and new)

That's an old Ryzen so I would expect Devuan to do well against Arch. Run the same games on both and compare framerates. CS:GO runs marginally faster under Arch for me (compared to Debian bullseye) but I have a 5th generation Ryzen.


Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

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#7 2022-11-13 19:59:03

andyprough
Member
Registered: 2019-10-19
Posts: 327  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Some desktop environments will slow the machine down noticeably. Cinnamon used to be particularly bad, although recently I think it's been more speed optimized. Using a minimal window manager such as DWM or Openbox or IceWM instead of a desktop environment can speed you up, especially on older equipment.

Using the latest version of an older generation LTS kernel instead of a new generation kernel will usually give you a speed boost according to years of benchmark tests on Phoronix website. LTS kernels such as the 5.10 kernel are optimized over a period of years, whereas newer kernels such as the various 6.x versions typically introduce regressions. If you aren't using brand new hardware that needs a new kernel feature then it's worthwhile to experiment with older LTS kernels. I have one machine that runs fantastic on the 4.9 kernel, and another that is very happy with the 4.19, and on most others I've been sticking with the 5.10 kernels lately.

Also it's worth checking the cpufreq scaling governor to see if it's in "powersave" or "performance" mode. I don't recall how Debian/Devuan normally set this. There's various how-to's online to check and to change this governor.

Building a kernel that's optimized for your particular equipment used to give about a 2%-3% performance boost (allegedly), although I don't think you'll see as much boost compared to the kernels that distros provide today. But it's always worth trying and worth learning about the kernel config options and how they might apply to your system. If you build your own optimized kernel, you'll probably "feel" like your system is running faster, even if it's not. And that's got to be worth something, right?

Lastly, in my personal experience, runit and s6 make systems noticeably faster in terms of booting and program start times compared to sysvinit and are especially faster compared to systemd. So on your Artix systems you'll have a lot of good options there. Also dinit seemed pretty zippy when I tried it.

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#8 2022-11-13 23:21:44

deepforest
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Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Which benchmarks are you using? Care to share them?

Overall feeling of response time.
Tell me one best benchmarks and i can make tests.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

I would expect Devuan to do well against Arch.

Thanks! Witch Devuan stable or unstable?

Last edited by deepforest (2022-11-13 23:30:32)

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#9 2022-11-13 23:30:10

deepforest
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Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

andyprough Thank you, very useful!

Using the latest version of an older generation LTS kernel instead of a new generation kernel will usually give you a speed boost according to years of benchmark tests on Phoronix website. LTS kernels such as the 5.10 kernel are optimized over a period of years

And what you can say about MX Linux compare to Devuan? MX have lts kernel 5.10

runit and s6 make systems noticeably faster in terms of booting and program start times compared to sysvinit and are especially faster compared to systemd. So on your Artix systems you'll have a lot of good options there. Also dinit seemed pretty zippy when I tried it.

choice is not rich https://nosystemd.org/ if we speak about Linux with "human face" and that working "out of the box"

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#10 2022-11-13 23:40:59

GlennW
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From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2019-07-18
Posts: 582  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

One thing I do, and check from time to time is services that load at boot.

rc-update, I turn off as many server services as possible...

ie, sudo, squid, openvpn, ssh, savecache, nethack-common, haveged, fancontrol (stops error spam), exim4, dictd, avahi-daemon and bluetooth.

Because I tether my phone as a modem, squid and openvpn are started after I connect to the phone long after the boot processes are done...

:-)


pic from 1993, new guitar day.

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#11 2022-11-14 00:40:59

andyprough
Member
Registered: 2019-10-19
Posts: 327  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

deepforest wrote:

And what you can say about MX Linux compare to Devuan? MX have lts kernel 5.10

I thought that antiX with runit, Artix with s6, and a minimal Void installation were all shockingly fast. Anything with boot speeds of under a couple of seconds is startling to me, as I was an old time SuSE professional user in the days when we would count boot speeds in minutes. Rebooting used to be a good time to use the bathroom and get a coffee refill. With antiX, Artix, and Void, I'm too slow to even get out of my chair before I am being prompted to sign in again.

MX seemed pretty average to me - I don't recall ever being impressed with the boot speed or responsiveness with MX, but at the same time I wasn't disappointed. Seems like the last time I used it boot times were about 15-20 seconds. MX is loading a lot of services by default - I think GlennW is right that you want to go through and shut down unneeded services if you are trying to achieve boot speed. Also MX is using either sysvinit or systemd - the two slowest init systems that I've personally experienced.

Devuan is pretty fast, but not like antiX, Artix and Void in my experience. Once again, probably has to do with it using sysvinit and starting up more services by default than I really need.

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#12 2022-11-14 06:01:37

Head_on_a_Stick
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From: London
Registered: 2019-03-24
Posts: 3,125  
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Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

deepforest wrote:

Tell me one best benchmarks

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ … =500334237

deepforest wrote:

Witch Devuan stable or unstable?

Stable. Unless you enjoy fixing broken systems.

EDIT:

andyprough wrote:

Anything with boot speeds of under a couple of seconds is startling to me

Hold on to your hat Andy:

archie:~$ systemd-analyze              
Startup finished in 210ms (userspace) 
multi-user.target reached after 210ms in userspace.
archie:~$ systemd-analyze blame --no-p 
49ms systemd-resolved.service
33ms user@1000.service
20ms systemd-journal-flush.service
20ms systemd-logind.service
19ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
12ms iwd.service
11ms dbus.service
10ms systemd-journald.service
 9ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
 9ms nftables.service
 5ms systemd-remount-fs.service
 5ms dev-hugepages.mount
 4ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount
 4ms systemd-update-utmp.service
 4ms user-runtime-dir@1000.service
 2ms systemd-user-sessions.service
archie:~$

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2022-11-14 06:40:13)


Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

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#13 2022-11-14 21:45:10

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

andyprough Thanks a lot!

I thought that antiX with runit, Artix with s6, and a minimal Void installation were all shockingly fast.

But only Artix have xfce out from the box? Why antiX have no xfce by default? If i am install xfce on antiX its not broke the speed?

Also MX is using either sysvinit or systemd - the two slowest init systems that I've personally experienced.

Devuan is pretty fast, but not like antiX, Artix and Void in my experience. Once again, probably has to do with it using sysvinit and starting up more services by default than I really need.

This! So only one way to speed up Devuan is disable unneeded services?

Last edited by deepforest (2022-11-14 21:45:38)

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#14 2022-11-14 21:48:30

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

GlennW wrote:

One thing I do, and check from time to time is services that load at boot.

rc-update, I turn off as many server services as possible...

ie, sudo, squid, openvpn, ssh, savecache, nethack-common, haveged, fancontrol (stops error spam), exim4, dictd, avahi-daemon and bluetooth.

Because I tether my phone as a modem, squid and openvpn are started after I connect to the phone long after the boot processes are done...

:-)

Thanks! And how exactly turn off unneeded services technically? And what services is safe to disable? Were is i can get list of this services?

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#15 2022-11-14 21:51:05

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Stable. Unless you enjoy fixing broken systems.

I am on Ceres almost year and nothing is broke yet.

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#16 2022-11-14 21:55:44

deepforest
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Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
deepforest wrote:

Tell me one best benchmarks

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ … =500334237

No. FPS is equal on all my systems. I am talking about booting, launching apps, responce time gui, and lag of DEs. How it can be measure? And its NOT subjective)

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#17 2022-11-14 21:55:47

Head_on_a_Stick
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From: London
Registered: 2019-03-24
Posts: 3,125  
Website

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

deepforest wrote:

I am on Ceres almost year and nothing is broke yet.

Give it time big_smile

And enjoy the massively outdated packages during the upcoming freeze. The Debian devs sometimes even leave critical bugs unfixed in the development branches until the release is done...

deepforest wrote:

its NOT subjective

I respectfully disagree. Change my mind :-)

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2022-11-14 21:57:13)


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#18 2022-11-14 22:18:33

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Give it time big_smile

And enjoy the massively outdated packages during the upcoming freeze. The Debian devs sometimes even leave critical bugs unfixed in the development branches until the release is done...

So what is happens with my Ceres when freeze is come?

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

I respectfully disagree. Change my mind :-)

LoL. Devuan after hours working feeling like rubber. And Artix not it fast from the boot. On Arch when i push on "Application menu"(not Whisker) after boot, needed  ~10-15! sec to it appear. On Artix all response is instantly.

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#19 2022-11-14 22:24:44

golinux
Administrator
Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

deepforest wrote:

So what is happens with my Ceres when freeze is come?

Ceres is always fluid and unstable. It never freezes. Please take a look at our release information.

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#20 2022-11-14 22:45:09

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

Like this?

root@devuan:/home/freeartist/Downloads/Q-Zandronum_source/qzandronum2-patch/buildclient# service --status-all
 [ + ]  acpid
 [ ? ]  alsa-utils
 [ - ]  anacron
 [ + ]  avahi-daemon
 [ + ]  bluetooth
 [ ? ]  bootchart-done
 [ - ]  bootlogd
 [ - ]  bootlogs
 [ - ]  bootmisc.sh
 [ - ]  brightness
 [ - ]  checkfs.sh
 [ - ]  checkroot-bootclean.sh
 [ - ]  checkroot.sh
 [ + ]  connman
 [ - ]  console-setup.sh
 [ + ]  cron
 [ ? ]  cryptdisks
 [ ? ]  cryptdisks-early
 [ + ]  cups
 [ + ]  cups-browsed
 [ + ]  dbus
 [ ? ]  dundee
 [ + ]  elogind
 [ + ]  eudev
 [ + ]  exim4
 [ + ]  gpm
 [ - ]  hddtemp
 [ - ]  hostname.sh
 [ ? ]  hwclock.sh
 [ - ]  keyboard-setup.sh
 [ - ]  killprocs
 [ ? ]  kmod
 [ - ]  lightdm
 [ + ]  lisa-trinity
 [ - ]  lm-sensors
 [ ? ]  mount-configfs
 [ - ]  mountall-bootclean.sh
 [ - ]  mountall.sh
 [ - ]  mountdevsubfs.sh
 [ - ]  mountkernfs.sh
 [ - ]  mountnfs-bootclean.sh
 [ - ]  mountnfs.sh
 [ + ]  network-manager
 [ ? ]  networking
 [ + ]  ntpsec
 [ ? ]  ofono
 [ - ]  openvpn
 [ + ]  osspd
 [ + ]  pcscd
 [ + ]  preload
 [ - ]  procps
 [ - ]  pulseaudio-enable-autospawn
 [ - ]  rc.local
 [ - ]  rmnologin
 [ - ]  rsync
 [ + ]  rsyslog
 [ + ]  saned
 [ - ]  sendsigs
 [ + ]  slim
 [ + ]  smartmontools
 [ ? ]  speech-dispatcher
 [ - ]  stop-bootlogd
 [ - ]  stop-bootlogd-single
 [ - ]  sudo
 [ ? ]  tdm
 [ - ]  umountfs
 [ - ]  umountnfs.sh
 [ - ]  umountroot
 [ - ]  unattended-upgrades
 [ - ]  urandom
 [ + ]  uuidd
 [ - ]  virtualbox
 [ - ]  x11-common
root@devuan:/home/freeartist/Downloads/Q-Zandronum_source/qzandronum2-patch/buildclient#
root@devuan:/etc# update-rc.d -f bluetooth disable
insserv: warning: current start runlevel(s) (empty) of script `bluetooth' overrides LSB defaults (2 3 4 5).
insserv: warning: current stop runlevel(s) (0 1 2 3 4 5 6) of script `bluetooth' overrides LSB defaults (0 1 6).
root@devuan:/etc# 

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#21 2022-11-14 22:53:07

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

golinux wrote:
deepforest wrote:

So what is happens with my Ceres when freeze is come?

Ceres is always fluid and unstable. It never freezes. Please take a look at our release information.

Thanks You! Its useful.

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#22 2022-11-14 22:55:26

andyprough
Member
Registered: 2019-10-19
Posts: 327  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

deepforest wrote:

But only Artix have xfce out from the box? Why antiX have no xfce by default? If i am install xfce on antiX its not broke the speed?

antiX is ONLY window managers (Icewm, JWM, Fluxbox, Herbstluftwm) by default. I don't know if installing XFCE slows down the system - I have XFCE installed on antiX and the system seems plenty fast enough.

So only one way to speed up Devuan is disable unneeded services?

 

That and all the other stuff that everyone told you above. And anything else that we forgot to mention. I mean, it's Linux - there's like 100 different ways just to copy a file. There's basically an infinite number of combinations of settings and programs and desktops and configurations you could use with your distro, and each combination might give you different speed and responsiveness. So no, you could not say the "only" way to speed up Devuan is to disable unneeded services. It's probably one of the BEST ways to do it though.

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#23 2022-11-14 23:50:21

deepforest
Member
Registered: 2020-03-24
Posts: 307  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

antiX is ONLY window managers (Icewm, JWM, Fluxbox, Herbstluftwm) by default. I don't know if installing XFCE slows down the system - I have XFCE installed on antiX and the system seems plenty fast enough.

Thanks again!) And what distros are you using and which one do you like the most?

So no, you could not say the "only" way to speed up Devuan is to disable unneeded services. It's probably one of the BEST ways to do it though.

and what i could do right in my case?
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=38617#p38617

Last edited by deepforest (2022-11-15 00:17:03)

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#24 2022-11-15 00:31:30

andyprough
Member
Registered: 2019-10-19
Posts: 327  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

deepforest wrote:

and what i could do right in my case?
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=38617#p38617

Your case is different from mine. I almost never print anything, so I do not allow cups and cupsd to autostart, and I don't use bluetooth devices with the computer, so that's gone. I also don't use a graphical login manager, so your slim service would not be used on my system. And I find NetworkManager to be bloated, so I manage my network by other means. You just have to go through, familiarize yourself with the different services, and see what you need and what Devuan really needs. If you don't know what they are, you shouldn't be turning them off. Just asking other people's opinions isn't going to help you - you'll need to educate yourself.

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#25 2022-11-15 00:36:59

GlennW
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2019-07-18
Posts: 582  

Re: Can you suggest some tips and tricks for speed up Devuan?

to get a list...

service --status-all

I use openrc init, so it may be different for you, but

show status...

rc-update

to edit a service's runlevel, to add, delete or modify the runlevel of each service

rc-update del ssh default
rc-update add ssh off

Be aware that service package updates may modify the runlevels, so you need to check periodically.

edit,  couldn't locate this.
The old way was with chkconfig... but I can't find it anymore... but here's some info (link) about it.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/chkconfig-command-in-linux-with-examples/

Last edited by GlennW (2022-11-15 01:09:57)


pic from 1993, new guitar day.

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