Hardening desktop Linux

At every new installation of Linux (Kubuntu) i will set some performance and stable optimizations.

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Use ramdisk to mount the /tmp folder

If you have a SSD is important to limit the write operations for a better disk life. So let’s use mount the tmp folder in RAM.

# nano /etc/fstab
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[...]
/swapfile                                 none            swap    sw              0       0
tmpfs   /tmp    tmpfs   defaults,noatime,nosuid,mode=1777,size=8G  0       0

Append the bold line and adjust the size as half of your RAM. So if you have 16GB of RAM then limit the tmp folder up to 8GB.

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Disable splash screen at boot

The correct way to disable the splash screen, even will future Grub updated, is to edit the default configuration.

# nano /etc/default/grub
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[...]
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
[...] 

Delete the “quiet splash” from the Grub command line and save the file.

[...]
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
[...]

Regenerate the grub.cfg with the command update-grub2.

# update-grub2

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Disable the login KDE splash screen

In Kunbuntu 18.04 the theme breeze has a annoying bug.

Run the following command (press ALT+F2) to open the splashscreen configuration

/usr/bin/kcmshell5 kcm_splashscreen

Select “none” and after “apply”.

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Disable Baloo file indexing

If you have and SSD is also raccomended to  disable Baloo file indexing to increase the performance.

# balooctl disable
# killall baloo_file

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