Removing Tracker

Tracker is a nice search tool, but it takes a heavy load on your CPU while indexing. If you don’t need quick desktop search, you should disable or remove it.

Disable it by going to [System > Preferences > Search and Indexing] and disable indexing and watching. Under the Performance tab you can set Indexing speed to slow, and minimize memory usage.

If you want to completely uninstall Tracker, use this command:

sudo apt-get remove tracker tracker-search-tool tracker-utils

Drop Unnecessary Processes and Services

You should also consider dropping some of the automatically started processes on the system. From [System] > [Preferences] > [Sessions] you can disable unwanted startup programs. Here’s a list of examples of session services you can safely disable:

• Bluetooth Manager
• Evolution Alarm Notifier
• Network Manager
• Power Manager
• Print Queue Applet
• Check for new hardware drivers
• Tracker + Tracker Applet
• Visual Assistance

For more information, see the PSUbuntu wiki.

Other tweaks

Consider removing the wallpaper image and use a solid black color instead.

Another option is to install the alternative desktop manager Xfce. You can either install the Xubuntu desktop on top of your existing Ubuntu installation (sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop), or download the Xubuntu installer disc for a clean install.

You may also experiment with more lightweight window managers such as openbox or fluxbox.

Also see xbmc’s forum tutorial on how to reduce memory usage with the run level configurator sysv-rc-conf.

Share your tips on how to boost PSUbuntu performance in the comments or this forum thread.