Hot Tips to Improve your Ubuntu 8.10 OS

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 10 Nov 2008

No matter how good a piece of software is, there is no such thing as a perfect operating system. Even in the case of the recently released Ubuntu 8.10, which is as good as they come in terms of OSs, there are a few bits and pieces you can tinker with and improve your overall Ubuntu experience. These tips may prove to be quite handy, considering the fact that the 8.10 iteration of the Ubuntu OS has proven to be slower than versions 7.04, 7.10 and 8.04.

The first thing that you could do is disable atime, which will result in a 40% disk efficiency increase. You can find a detailed, step by step how-to guide here. This tweak is not particularly hard to complete, and is completely reversible – just undo the changes you made to your system if you believe the tweak did not give you an efficiency increase.

Due to time-related constraints, the Ubuntu developers had to bundle the OS with Open Office 2.4. The thing is that the 3.0 version of this software has been around for about a month now (it was released on October 13th) and has been downloaded by several million people. There are two options at your disposal: you can upgrade to v 3.0, or you could use both versions of the Open Office suite. A detailed guide on how to install Open Office 3.0 on your Ubuntu system is available here.

The third tweak that you could use to your advantage is related to the Tracker feature in Ubuntu 8.10. No one is denying its usefulness, it’s just that it uses quite a bit of processor power, which can prove to be annoying at times. If you disable this feature or at least cut the wind from its sails a little bit, you will notice an increase in processor power efficiency. A detailed guide on how to achieve this is available here.

In related Ubuntu news, the Alpha 1 version of the upcoming Ubuntu 9.04 operating system will drop by the end of the month, on the 20th of November to be more precise. This tenth Ubuntu release is better known for its catchy codename – the Jaunty Jackalope.


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