Hi Pierre,

If your Ubuntu machine is showing signs of slowness, then you can follow the below mentioned methods to make it fast. 

Method 1. Installing the Preload service
Preload is a daemon background service, which monitors the applications you use on your computer. It learns the libraries and binaries you use and loads them into memory ahead of time so the applications start faster.
For example, if you always open LibreOffice and Firefox after starting your computer, preload will automatically load each application’s files into memory when your computer starts. When you log in and launch the applications, they’re start faster.
To install Preload, run the following command:
sudo apt-get install preload


Method 2. Try using a lighter version of Desktop Environment
If you’re using older hardware that struggles with Ubuntu’s default Unity desktop environment, you may want to use a lighter desktop environment.
Good options include:

• LXDE
• XFCE  
• Xmonad

Method 3. Controlling the Startup Applications
Applications can automatically start as Packages can add their own autostart entries like Dropbox.
If you have quite a few of these entries, this can make your desktop take longer to appear.
You can control these startup applications from the Startup Applications dialog.

To view the entries, run the below command in a terminal:

sudo sed -i ‘s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g’ /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop

After running this command, restart the Startup Applications dialog and you’ll see more options.


Now disable the entries by unchecking their check boxes instead of clicking the Remove button.

Method 4. Reduce the Boot Menu Delay

Ubuntu displays the GRUB boot loader menu for 10 seconds when you start your computer. After 10 seconds, it automatically starts your default boot entry.

To modify this setting, open the /etc/default/grub file in a text editor:
gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

Change the value of GRUB_TIMEOUT in the file to a lower number. You can access the boot menu by continually pressing the arrow keys or Escape key while your computer boots.

Save the file and run the following command to apply your changes:
sudo update-grub2

I hope the above methods will help in making your machine faster.

Regards,
Lokesh