Ubuntu's performance : how to speed up ?

[Bob Nielsen]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 06:43:43PM +0100, Vincent Trouilliez wrote:
> > > > (good time to get a UPS while you're at it).
> > > 
> > > Huuuu... what is a "UPS" ?! :o)
> > 
> > Uninterruptable Power Supply (a battery-operated unit which will supply
> > AC power to the computer for a brief time if the power mains go down.)  
> > Some of these will work with software that can gently shut down a 
> > computer--that could include flushing the RAM to disk.
> 
> Ah okay, didn't know you called them UPS in english.
> Yes these things are great, but so expensive. Well, they were expensive
> 15 years aog, haven't looked at prices these days, but batteries always
> cost fortunes so I don't think they have become as chip as computers...
> I guess  it all depens how big a battery you want, if it's just to let
> you pwoer down the system cleanly, or keep it running until the power is
> back, whic hmay take a millisecond or 6 hours....
> I don't know what electricity supply is like in the US, but here, I am
> more concerned about Linux crashing than about power cuts ! So if Linux
> crashes, then the cached data will be lost anyway :o(
> 
> I don't doubt that Linux can be as solid as $$$ Unix systems, whe using
> the command line only; but with the whome gnome Desktop and zillions of
> porgrams and libraires all over the place, I guess it will be a long
> time before it's rock solid... Sure, it's plenty stable enough for home
> use, but I would not like my life to depend on it... I would be at the
> mercy of applet crashing or a nautilus bug....scary ! ;o)
> 

In the U.S. the reliability of the power system is normally very good,
but during storms, anything can happen. It depends somewhat on location.
When I lived in Arizona, lightning strikes would take out the power
several times each year (usually in the summer).  I am now in Washington
state and if we get a strong storm, trees will sometimes fall and break
the power lines (ice can do this also).

The price of a UPS has dropped a bit.  I bought two of them recently 
(1000 VA) for $100 each.

I currently have two systems running Linux (with these UPSs).  One of
them is not running X most of the time and is quite stable (it has been
running constantly since I put it on a UPS about 4 months ago).  On this
computer, I reboot whenever X hangs, although I can usually ssh into it
from the other one and kill X.