I got ubuntu 8.04 and after disabling 8 services, bootup improved, but not much. Under my prior ubuntu 7.04, bootup was 1 minute. I have to improve bootup time further under 8.04.

The following services are enabled on my ubuntu 8.04. Can you guys please look over and decide which ones I can safely disable and which ones I shouldn't? I'd greatly apprecite this, guys!

- apache2
- avahi-daemon
- apparmor
- apport
- courier-s$
- courier-a$
- courier-m$
- cryptdisks
- cryptdisks$
- dhcdbd
- hal
- hsf
- keyboard-$
- libpam-fo$
- linux-res$
- loopback
- mountover$
- policykit
- procps
- pulseaudio
- rc.local
- screen-cl$
- sl-modem-daemon
- stop-read$
- ufw
- umountroot
- vboxdrv
- vboxnet
- wpa-ifupd$
- x11-common


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Well, how can we tell? You don't say what you need and don't need, so it's hard to say what's 'excess.

Hi, T0ne. Just look at the list and tell me which services you think are not necessary and tell me why. That's all. Thanks.

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I think that the point that you have missed is that the necessary ones are the ones that you are using and we don't know what you are using.

If you are not running a web server, for example, apache is unnecessary, and a good candidate to get rid of, because it is quite big. But, I don't know whether you run a webserver (and don't overlook the possibility that something runs a webserver to give you a web configuration interface).

I wouldn't want to touch the following
- avahi-daemon
- apparmor
- cryptdisks
- cryptdisks$
- dhcdbd
- hal
- keyboard-$
- libpam-fo$
- loopback
- mountover$
- policykit
- pulseaudio
- rc.local
- screen-cl$
- stop-read$
- ufw
- umountroot
- wpa-ifupd$
- x11-common

because they sound too dangerous. (Although, as I say, you only need keyboard if you are running a keyboard. It will probably be obvious to you whether you need that, but you could be running a headless server.)
And the wpa one is wireless, so that would go if you aren't running wireless.

And some of the rest I'm just a bit unclear on what exactly they do, so although I haven't included them, they may still be dangerous.

Have you thought of 'man process_name' to see what they do? And what about the bootchart approach of looking at which proc takes how much time and trying to overlay them?

If the services could be catalogued in useful and non-useful ones then the "non-useful" ones wouldn't exist on first place.

Each service will be useful or not for you depending on what do you use, what do you do, and what functionalities of your os do you use.

About config interfaces and apache, most of them do not use apache for anything. The first two examples I can think of are mldonkey (port 4080) and cups (631), neither of them need apache nor any other web server to run. And if you run a web server in your home, probably lighttpd is more suited, unless you use some esoteric feature of apache.

Salasi, you made a good point. My answer is, I use my computer for wireless and dialup, faxing through eFax, printing, word processing, listening to mp3s rand adio listening over the net using banshee, video playing with VLC and Totem, I got Virtualbox which I use alot, I use Kmobiletools and Moto4lin to access my cellphone by connecting my cell thru USB, I use XScan for scanning images, I use KB3 for burning CDs and DVDs. And, I don't use my computer as a webserver.

And I think that's it!

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Did you profile after disabling those services?

Hi, Jay73, how are you? What do you mean by "profile after disabling those services"?

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You have just made a lot of changes to your system. Re-profiling your boot will reorganize it and make it faster on boots afterwards. For doing so, reboot your PC. When you come to your grub list, hit escape to see your grub menu and edit the topmost line and add the word below to the end of it:
profile

Hi, craigevil, thanks for replying. I did disable certain services. But, when I tried to edit GRUB through your instructions, I found 4 lines, starting with the first:

- root
- kernel
- initrd
- quiet

I did, however, type in 'profile' in the 'kernel' line even though it wasn't the first line, because I thought that line was the most relevant. I know it wasn't part of your instruction. Please, let me know if I did it worng or I should instead go back and type it in 'root'. Thanks.

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Hi, Salasi.... Just to remind you, I use my computer for wireless and dialup, faxing, printing, word processing, mp3, radio listening over the net, DVDs through VLC, Virtualbox, and pop/smtp mail.

Here's an updated list of services I want to disable. I did stop some services that you recommended. But, which ones can I safely disable now, considering that it's an updated list and can you please tell me why for each? This is very important for me... hope you understand.

- apparmor
- dhcdbd
- hal
- killprocs
- libpam-foreground
- makedev
- module-init-tools
- mountoverflowtmp
- policykit
- powernowd
- powernord.early
- procps
- rc.local
- sendsigs
- single
- sysklogd
- udev
- udev-finish
- ufw
- umountfs
- umountroot
- urandom
- wpa--ifupdown
- x11-common

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can't say that i do, but:

- apparmor no, security
- dhcdbd no, dhcp interface to dbus, only kill if you know that you won't use dhcp
- hal no, hardware abs layer fundamental to gui convenience features
- killprocs no, needed to kill processes
- libpam-foreground library for plugabble auth module, don't kill
- makedev no
- module-init-tools no
- mountoverflowtmp no
- policykit no
- powernowd powersaving (amd only, can possibly disable on intel cpus without effect?)
- powernord.early as above
- procps don't know
- rc.local start local processes
- sendsigs don't know, but its sounds dangerous
- single don't know
- sysklogd system logger, don't disable
- udev to do with hardware, don't
- udev-finish as above
- ufw no, ubuntu firewall
- umountfs do you want to mount filesystems?
- umountroot as above
- urandom random number service, used by misc apps
- wpa--ifupdown part of wireless protected access, not needed if not using wireless
- x11-common not needed if not using a gui

So the only thing that I can see is safe is the powernow stuff. Whether its a disadvantage or not depends on whether you use an AMD cpu and your usage profile (would power saving ever kick in if you had it available?).

But I doubt powernow uses up much memory or many cycles in the start up, so I'm not sure its worth it, given that there is other stuff that would have been better to look at (see earlier comment about bootchart; filesystems; and system tuning and more fundamentally, use a lighter gui)

(Slaps taurusx5's wrist sharply) "Are you trying to put your nice, running system into the emergency-room on purpose?"

Instead of just poking at things to see if you can turn them off, go find where they are defined (e.g.) /etc/init.d, /etc/rc.d, and find out what each one does.

Also, fiddle with the output of the top command to see just how active these processes are and how many resources they consume. Many of these services are either built-in to the kernel (they are "kernel processes"), or they really are essential in most cases. (apache2 being an obvious exception.) If the process isn't running much, or isn't using much resources....
Honestly, I'm making a bit of light of the whole thing, but... proceed cautiously in unfamiliar waters.

Hi, salasi. Thanks for the awesome reply.

1) You mentioned that powernowd can be turned off. I don't have an AMD, I got an Intel processor. Given this, is there a real danger in turning off powernowd and powernord.early?

2) You also mentioned procps and rc.local. I gather you're not sure about these.

3) To answer your question about umountfs, I don't know what you mean by "do you want to mount filesystems?" Can you further clarify this question.

4) You didn't mention cryptdisks. Can I safely disable it?

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1) there is no real danger (AFAIK) turning off powernowd. With an Intel cpu I believe it won't make a difference, with an AMD cpu it will mean that you lose the power saving features. If I had an AMD cpu, I'd want to keep it, for the power saving, but that's not what this thread is about.

3) OK, this was a slightly sardonic comment. To use disk space in a unixy system, the disks have to be mounted. You could potentially disable disk mounting in an embedded system that doesn't have disks, but for everyone else this is necessity.

You really don't want to be messing about tools for mounting and unmounting disks unless you know lots more about it than I do.

4) Cryptdisks is part of disk encryption; if you don't use disk encryption, you should be able to disable this. OTOH if you do use disk encryption, disabling this will lead to you being unable to access your data. Most people would regard this as a disadvantage.