elise_s1 wrote:Hi,
I'm new and registered here as it looks the right place to get correct answers... so Hi everybody!
...Finally, as the next LTS is arriving in few months, I'd like to adjust the system now to make the OS update easier when Sarah arrives.
This advice is
fur elise...
Based on your specs, you aren't going to be playing the latest video games, so with an abundant 6GB, I doubt you will have much need of swap. Swap may be a good idea as a precaution, although some people get by without it. I would locate the swap partition on the SSD for speed. Based on your screenshot, it appears you have already done so. SWAP only gets used when programs use up a set percentage of available RAM. The percentage is controlled by a single plain text line found in /etc/sysctl.conf. Remember that most files in /etc control system settings, are in plain text, and can be edited by any text editor. This makes Linux a bit easier to configure sometimes, but the catch is learning which files do what.
So, back to our /etc/sysctl.conf. What value to use? The computer I am writing this reply upon has 8GB of RAM. I do not play big-time video games. So I do not need much swap at all. What I want is for the system not to bother with swapping at all unless it is in dire straits. Swapping is unnecessary I/O for my purposes, in most cases. My line reads:
, which means only when free RAM is reduced to 2% of total RAM, SWAP will be used. Ubuntu, from what I understand, tends to set the percentage higher by default, perhaps for compatibility with users whose computers have very limited RAM, for example, 2GB or less. Ubuntu does not design their system only for you and me, but for everyone, all over the world, of course. So we should make little adjustments for our RAM-rich systems. It is only fair.
elise_s1 wrote:
second question is about storage: within a week I will add an HDD where ALL documents will be stored. How should I deal with this? Ideally I wouldn't like to lose the quick response of the SSD so it would be nice to access the HDD only when needed.
You are right to use Gparted to prepare the HDD. That is the first step. You have a couple of options. When installing Linux Mint, you can set the home partition (/home) to be anything you want, such as the HDD. Alternatively, you can simply store your documents and other media files on the HDD, but keep your home partition on the SSD for speed. This may be the better alternative, but bear in mind that Linux applications tend to default to saving things in /home. You will just have to remember to save things to a path on your HDD.
You will want to modify your /etc/fstab file to control the settings of your SSD and HDD. Linux Mint will do this for you automatically and put some good generic defaults in there during the installation process. But if you are adding a new HDD, then modify /etc/fstab. Mine looks like this:
Code: Select all
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation. this is the SSD.
UUID=9b2011b7-c11b-210c-2dd3-a14ec4ba81a8 / ext4 errors=remount-ro,noatime,discard 0 1
#/dev/sdb1, the HDD
UUID=06DCEA23DAFA3343 /media/sdb1/ ntfs defaults,noatime,nobootwait 0 1
#a network drive i wish to have access to upon system boot
//192.168.156.201/intel-gathering /trusted/serve cifs guest,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8,domain=gnome,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,noperm 0 0
#it is possible to make little ramdrives to take advantage of the system ram, if desired
#tmpfs /home/igor/.cache/mozilla/firefox tmpfs mode=1777 noatime 0 0
#tmpfs /home/igor/.cache/wesnoth/ tmpfs mode=1777 noatime 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,size=2G,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/run tmpfs defaults,size=2G,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/lock tmpfs defaults,size=256M,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
elise_s1 wrote:
third question is about the graphic adapter as there is an annoying glitch when browsing the menu (FF is fine) and I am not sure if is driver related or not.
On one of my systems, I run a Core 2 Duo with GMA graphics, and I haven't had problems, but on the other hand, I installed an ancient NVIDIA 8400 GS video card on it in order to speed up high-def video playback. Unfortunately, such an ancient card does not work with the proprietary driver, even old versions, so I use the open-source Nouveau driver, which seems fine and is installed by default anyway.
I am not sure of the cause of your issue, but you will want to check for drivers on a new install. Use Linux Mint's nifty Driver Manager. Sure, it may not really be necessary for your Intel chip, but Driver Manager is fun and easy to use, and a nice bragging point about Linux Mint, so I like to give it a whirl on new installs. It may detect something that could be easily installed and improve your system. Also, you may wish to install vaapi using the Software Manager, because it is a nice little graphic accelerator that will offload a bit of processing to the video driver in certain applications, such as SMPlayer when used in conjunction with MPV. While you're in Software Manager, do a search for GMA as well.
