I have ubuntu 18.04 installed for >3 years with Xfce desktop environment. Over the last year the startup of desktop environment (i.e. time from log-in before disk finish crunching) became untolerably long (>5minutes?).
This is strange because
- I expect linux does not have the same issues as Windows which slow it down over time (Windows gets progressively slower over time, why doesn't Ubuntu?)
- Xfce environment should be most light-weight of all desktop environments.
My ideas what could be the cause:
I'm pretty sure the slow down has something to do with some disk operations, because the disk crunch terribly.
I also think it has something to do with some internet app, because I'm unable to load any web page before the disk finishes to crunch.
I was thinking the issue was due to dropbox sync. Really wen I switch of dropbox the startup is significantly faster. But it is not all, even without dropbox it takse lot of time.
I would like to investigate what exactly does this huge ammaunt of disk I/O operations in internet access at startup. But I don't know how to do it, especially when the system is a bit frozen and interaction is lagging.
I have read many general articles how to speed up linux startup, e.g. this. But it is to unspecific.
Question:
How to investigate what exact app takes most of disk I/O and internet access operations at startup of desktop environment?
Are there some processes (e.g. file indexing for search, pre-loading shard libraries ...) which can become more and more demanding a as system gets older (with more files and programs to manage) ? I would like to turn of all such processes.
