This is probably going to make me sound incredibly impatient which I'm normally not, but...

Is there a way to decrease the loading time of Firefox by, for example, keeping it in the background so the full startup only has to be run once (like Windows notoriously seems to do with every program you'll never use)? It's not taking an untolerably long time to start, but I use it often enough that a decrease in time would be noticeable. I read something online about prelink (which I don't have on my system and can't seem to find anywhere) that made me wonder. The same question goes for Thunderbird and OOo, but I'm not opening and closing them often enough for it to really matter with those.

check this out http://www.emilsoft.net/products/firetweaker.php

That looks interesting, but I don't really like things "tweaking" my system when I don't know exactly what they're doing, and that covers many different areas. I'm just looking for something that would decrease the loading time (of the program itself, that is, not the pages within it) and leave everything else alone.

System Requirements:

* Microsoft Windows 2000/ME/XP/2003
* Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1

Kinda rules out a Linux system.

Search Google for a Slack package or source package for "prelink". Firefox loads in under 5 seconds on my Debian System.
My system spec:
ANthlon 1.8
512 Mb ram
Debian Unstable

If it works under Debian it will more than likely work well on a Slack system.


freshmeat.net: Project details for Prelink

How fast is your CPU and how much RAM do you have to begin with?

yep, i tweak my windows firefox and look changes by type about:config at firefox, then the changes i also put at firefox linux or just directly type about:config at linux firefox and change some preferences like :

browser.cache.memory.capacity

browser.cache.check_doc_frequency

dom.max_script_run_time

browser.chrome.site_icons

browser.chrome.favicons

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

no, I noticed the same thing

Well, now that I really look at it, OOo is the slow one (10-15 secs). Firefox is under 5, but still longer than IE which, as I understand it, is always running in the background so never needs any time to boot. I guess my real question was is there a way to accomplish this same kind of thing with programs like Firefox and OOo, and is prelink is worth looking into for speeding up the process in general?

Prelink is GOOD.
But what you are looking for is "binery files being always on RAM".
I have been searching for this "Holly Grail" for a long time, and still
no luck :-( ...

P.S.
"like Windows notoriously seems to do with every program you'll never use",
I dont really know, but I dont think that this is really the case!

That isn't really the case, but Linux loads some programs you just don't use or don't want. For example, internet explorer is always on the background, the indexing service is always on the background, ready to start indexing at the most impossible times

Well I was exaggerating a bit, but I guess it isn't. So there's no easy way to do this?

I read somewhere that including the sticky bit on a program or file will keep it in RAM even after closure, specifically used for frequently-opened files. Could this be a help?

I am willing to try it, but I have no idea what a "sticky bit" is :-(

I don't know about Slack, but SuSE has what they call preloading. Basically when you boot programs like OO and Firefox, whatever; startup in the background and are ready whenever you want to use them.

SUPER preloading - OpenSUSE, The exact method SuSE uses may not work in other distros but you get the idea.

It was more a response so people more well-versed in linux than I could confirm or deny, but it all starts with permissions.

Most people know about the owner/group/world permissions of files (755, 777, et cetera). Well there's a magical permission called the "sticky bit" that is normally not used -- in the above examples it would be 1755, 1777, et cetera. I hope someone more experienced than I pipes up on the topic, but I've given you more than enough to google in the meantime