If your computer habits are anything like mine you probably have a set of applications that you use nearly every time you log in to the machine. Let me guess.. Firefox? Pidgin perhaps? Thunderbird or Evolution? You may have more or less, but it is common for a user to use the same applications regularly. Wouldn’t it be nice if those commonly used applications could startup faster? That is possible with a tool called “Preload”.
Installing Preload
The preload service is available through the main Ubuntu repositories, and can be installed by clicking the link below or running the command:
sudo aptitude install preload
A few things to note now about using Preload. First, this will not improve boot time. Preload monitors recurring applications and, after establishing a pattern, will preload those binaries into memory at startup. Given that it also has to establish a pattern you may not see a performance increase immediately. Give it some time though, you’ll start to see a difference soon enough!