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Is it possible to "preload"(actually not preload, but kinda emulate the startup) e.g. nautilus (or firefox) startup at login, so the first time I launch it myself it launches faster? Probably to start it on another desktop and close after some seconds?

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install the preload package

with a console type :

sudo apt-get install preload

And that's it. THe package will preload the applications the most used applications after calculating the usage statistic.

preload an application use ram memory and behave differently than "cold" or "warm" start an application.

  • Preload = putting everything in memory from the hard drive. Your application is garanteed to be run as fast as possible.
  • Cold Start = loading from hard drive to the memory
  • Warm Start : reusing what's left on memory and load what's missing from hard drive to ram memory. Your application may run faster if linux didn't had to empty the corresponding cache for another app.

The Cold Start impact is due to the hard drive speed and latency. You can purchase a good SSD drive in order to speed up cold start (it has a real overall impact on the latency of the system)

Best regards.

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  • there's almost no difference wheather preload is instaled or not, the "cold" start of a programm would take more time than the second time you launch it. I want to simulate the cold start of some programms so when I launch them they would start faster(cuz it would be the second time they are launched).
    – user73331
    Oct 7, 2012 at 15:04
  • It makes statistics of your most used programs and then it preload them in a "cold" start or not. A browser is exactly the kind of apps that will be preloaded. you need to wait that it builds your statistic usage. Now if you don't want to wait for preload to work then I would suggest you to buy a good SSD drive. The latency that you are experiencing is due to the latency of your hard drive.
    – Antoine Rodriguez
    Oct 7, 2012 at 15:14
  • Here's the part of preload.conf: mapprefix = /usr/;/lib;/var/cache/;!/ . This means that nothing that is in the e.g. ~/.mozilla would be preloaded(caches, adblock lists, etc). Only the libs and the application itself without the configs is preloaded.
    – user73331
    Oct 7, 2012 at 15:33
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    you can do this : mapprefix = /usr/;/lib;/var/cache/;/home;!/ Just make sure to correctly specify the other variables (sizes and maximums). You must have quite a lot of ram memory for what you try to achieve. You should really consider an SSD drive
    – Antoine Rodriguez
    Oct 7, 2012 at 15:41
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    Don't forget to look over the log file /var/log/preload.log in order to see if preload is working.
    – Antoine Rodriguez
    Oct 7, 2012 at 15:46

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