Is there anything similar to Disk Defragment (windows) that I can run on my linux computer?

Question

My Linux computer is running very slow. Is there some sort of Disk Clean Up or Defragment I can run? I am running a pretty old version of Mandrake. Please Help! THANKS

Answer 1

Fragmented hard drives running Linux (with an ext3 partition) doesn't slow the computer down at all when compared to defragmented hard drives, unlike on Windows, where it's like making a fat man go through a diet before a marathon. Defragmenting an ext3 hard drive can also create problems, because there are no real ext3 defrag tools, and one must convert the partition to ext2 and use an ext2 defrag program and hope it doesn't destroy files.

http://www.redhat.com/archives/ext3-users/2005-March/msg00013.html

If your computer is running really slow, it's another reason. Try to see if all necessary drivers are updated. If you can, get a newer version of Mandrake - in any case, a 'less older' one.

Answer 2

I won't repeat what everyone else has said. What you really want to know is how to figure out what is causing your computer to be slower than it was.

Step one. Call up a terminal or console and type 'top', without the quotes. This will give you every program that is running and show you the memory and cpu required by each program. It also shows you 3 different load averages of your computer at the top right. You can research what each means, but with nothing running, they should all be below 1.00%. If any are higher than that, look through the list to see what is using up cpu/memory.

You can also watch 'top' when you are running different programs to determine if any program is not running right.

If nothing abnormal shows up in 'top', then the slowness is your imagination.

Updating can cause mis-configured programs.

Worse case is to simply do a current backup of your data and put a newer version on your computer. If you like Mandrake (I've run it for many years), then you really will like PCLinuxOS.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Linux Defrags memory in general, not hard drives because it would mess up the file structure of Linux. My experience is that most of the commercial brands of Linux tend to bog down and run slow from time to time.

Try Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS which are open source types of linux. PCLinux Os is a mandriva (use to be Mandrake) based distribution with a windows like environment. Ubuntu is generally a Gnome based windows environment.

Answer 4

Not needed, Linux manages it's file structures differently than Windows.

Try a newer version of Linux. Kubuntu is really nice.

Answer 5

Linux filesystems don't suffer the same performance issues from fragmentation as DOS/Windows filesystems. Your slow performance isn't caused by fragmentation.