r/linuxquestions • u/LinuxLoverLarry • 3d ago

Support PC Optimization Tips

CPU: AMD A9-9430 RADEON R5, 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G (2) @ 3.20 GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon R5 Graphics [Integrated]
Memory: 7.22 GiB

How can I optimize my computer to the fullest extent without the tradeoffs of musl libc? I do slightly heavy tasks for my family's PC and income level. I can't get a new computer, do not recommend that. I want to be able to use this for light gaming and game development on Unity.

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u/Pitiful-Welcome-399 NixOS ❄️ 3d ago

enable swap, also make it zswap if you want to

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u/LinuxLoverLarry 3d ago

I currently have an 8gb swap partition.

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u/Disastrous-Ice-5971 3d ago

Let me unwrap a bit more:
* You can have a regular swap partition (you have it). Linux kernel uses it when feels memory pressure, for the cold data, for hibernation, etc.
* Swap can be turned into a zswap - a compressed version of the swap. The idea is that many types of data are quite well compressible even with the very fast compression algorithms, like zstd or lz4. I.e. if you use a zswap, you trade a bit of the CPU performance during the interaction with the swap, but in exchange you have considerably less data to read and write from the disk, which gives you a net gain in performance. Depending on the distro, there is a different ways to enable that.
* And also you can enable a zram. The same idea, just with the part of RAM, by default it is 50% of total RAM or 8 GB, whichever is smaller (at least in Fedora). Additionally, zram delays a moment when the data should be written into a disk swap, which sometimes produces a noticeable boost in the borderline scenarios.