Ok I know by its very nature linux OSs don't need defragment, disk clean etc. like Windows does. But are there any routine things I should do? My distro of Mint 6 running on my IBM 6221 Intellistation seems a little sluggish lately. Thanks in advance for the help

Windows routine checks are normaly resumed to defragmentation, disk clean, virus and malware scan, and keeping your system updated

On Linux if you eliminate defrag, virus and malware, you have left disk clean and keeping your system updated.
The disk clean stuff is normally resumed to cleaning your home folder.

If you want more maintenance stuff switch to Gentoo or Slackware and I guarantee that you will have plenty to do every day

The latest is Mint 8, so 6 is a bit old. Don't know how long it's been since it's been rebooted, or what you do on it, but you may want to check what's running. Sometimes, processes can get left out in a 'zombie' state, threads won't close right (especially if you're developing on it!), etc. X windows can be problematic too....as I rule, I try to reboot my development workstation once a month, just to shake the cobwebs out, and to flush out anything I've missed.

One distro isn't going to give you more maintenance than any other...some are 'server' distros; CentOS, RedHat Enterprise, SUSE Enterprise, etc., that have more housekeeping utilities. Why? They're made to be administered by someone, who keeps track of such things. 'Workstation' distros (Ubuntu and the like), are great for 'home' machines, but need additional prodding to keep things running smooth.

Ok how do you reboot? I want to know better what I am doing with this OS before I try to download another.

How to re-boot? It's one of the options when shutting down the computer! Maybe I missed the point of the question?

My most common maintenance is re-installing the OS. Seem strange?? The reason is simple: I diddle with things so much that I can usually not go more than a few months without something getting screwed up. I find it is usually easier to re-install than to unravel what went wrong.

"Reboot" is Linux-speak for "restart" in Windows-speak.

When you say "sluggish" do you mean when booting (starting up) or in use?

File systems which are more than ~70% full can slow systems. The df command shows usage.

High CPU utilisation slows systems. The top command shows which processes are running and how much CPU each is using.

High disk I/O (input/output) can slow systems. If this was the cause of sluggishness your computer's HDD LED would be active.

Well, often times you just have to type in "reboot" (as the root user, of course), at a command-prompt. You can log out and look on the login manager menu, most of the time there'll be an option for "shutdown".

There are lots of tutorials for beginning Linux users you can find via Google. Check out a few of them, and they'll give you some pointers.

keep the screen fingerprint free......................I hate that!!!!!

Hi,

Care to elaborate?

Indeed ... I use slackware, and guess what I have to do every day ... yeah, NOTHING !

Anyway, back to the topic.

I regularly run rkhunter and chkrootkit, just in case. I also run 'smartctl -t long /dev/sda' about once every 3-6 months to make sure my HDD won't fail soon and is not failing. Once in a while I clear out '/tmp' if junk has accumulated there, and also my home directory with some hidden config directories being no longer necessary because I uninstalled the programs.

That's about all I can remember right now.

You could have a look under /var to see if you've accumulated more logs than you need.
Normally these will be kept under control by the logrotate service defaults, but you can tune it if you want.

You might find this link useful: http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

Yes. It deepens how much you like your system to be updated. If you are an update freak like me, and if you like to update every day you probably will have to do maintenance every day.
Even more if you use the flag ~x86 or ~x86_64 on gentoo. You will have to rebuild deps of libraries, etc. And not always revdep-rebuild works. Although I have a server with gentoo that I don't do anything for months(the last update that I've made was a security one). My desktop is a different story.

I guess my inclusion of Slackware was unhappy.

Hi,

No, your inclusion of Slackware to that statement was not correct.

I think that's what I just said when I said that my inclusion of Slackware was unhappy.

You're right, I do upgrade the system ... but definitely not every day, but once in a while, I do upgrade.