Preload

preload is a program written by Behdad Esfahbod which runs as a daemon and records statistics about usage of programs using Markov chains; files of more frequently-used programs are, during a computer's spare time, loaded into memory. This results in faster startup times as less data needs to be fetched from disk. preload is often paired with prelink.

Installation

preload is available through pacman. In Arch Linux, just issue the command:

# pacman -S preload

Running the daemon

Systemd

Start directly with (as root)

# systemctl start preload.service

To start preload at system boot, type as root

# systemctl enable preload.service

rc.conf (deprecated)

Start directly with

# /etc/rc.d/preload start

To start preload at system boot, add it to the DAEMONS section in /etc/rc.conf:

DAEMONS =(... preload ...)

Configuration

The configuration file is /etc/preload.conf, it contains default settings that should be suitable for regular users. The cycle option lets you configure how often to ping the preload system to update its model of which applications and libraries to cache.

See also

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preload_(software)
• http://techthrob.com/2009/03/02/drastically-speed-up-your-linux-system-with-preload/
• Readahead