Tools: Arch Linux Running Slow? Here's How to Actually Fix It

Arch Linux Running Slow? Here's How to Actually Fix It ## First Things First: Diagnose Before You Clean ## Check What's Consuming Your Resources ## Common Culprits (And How to Spot Them) ## Desktop Environment Issues ## Browser Tabs Are RAM Vampires ## Background Indexing Services ## Journal Logs Growing Out of Control ## Check System Health ## The "System Cleaner" Question ## GUI Cleaning Tools ## Manual Cleaning Commands That Actually Matter ## The Hard Truth About "Cleaners" ## The Real Fix: Find the Problem Process ## Prevention: Keep Your System Lean ## My Recommendation If your Arch Linux system is crawling along with maxed-out RAM and CPU usage even when you're not doing much, you're not alone. Let's cut through the noise and actually solve this problem. Before you start randomly cleaning files, you need to know what's actually eating your resources. Here's how to find out: Your DE might be the problem. Look for these processes in htop: Firefox or Chrome with multiple tabs can easily consume several gigabytes. Check if your browser is the culprit before going further. These run constantly in the background: You can disable them if you don't use desktop search features. You might be wondering: "Is there an app that can just clean everything and make my system fast again?" Yes, there are tools, but they won't fix active performance issues: BleachBit - The Linux equivalent of CCleaner Stacer - System optimizer with a nice GUI Here's what you need to understand: Cleaning files frees up disk space, but it won't fix slowness caused by active processes. If your RAM and CPU are maxed out right now, it means: Cleaning cache files won't stop a runaway process from eating 4GB of RAM. Common fixes once you identify the culprit: Don't chase "system cleaners" as a solution to performance problems. Instead: Your Arch system should be fast. If it's not, something specific is wrong, and finding that one thing will solve your problem better than any cleaner app ever could. What processes are eating your resources? Drop them in the comments and let's troubleshoot together. Running Arch Linux and want to keep it fast? The key is understanding your system, not just cleaning it blindly. Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse COMMAND_BLOCK: # See top processes by CPU and memory (most useful) htop # Or if you don't have htop installed: top # Check memory usage breakdown free -h # See what's hogging your memory ps aux --sort=-%mem | head -20 # See what's maxing your CPU ps aux --sort=-%cpu | head -20 Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: # See top processes by CPU and memory (most useful) htop # Or if you don't have htop installed: top # Check memory usage breakdown free -h # See what's hogging your memory ps aux --sort=-%mem | head -20 # See what's maxing your CPU ps aux --sort=-%cpu | head -20 COMMAND_BLOCK: # See top processes by CPU and memory (most useful) htop # Or if you don't have htop installed: top # Check memory usage breakdown free -h # See what's hogging your memory ps aux --sort=-%mem | head -20 # See what's maxing your CPU ps aux --sort=-%cpu | head -20 COMMAND_BLOCK: # Check how much space your logs are using journalctl --disk-usage # If it's huge (multiple GB), clean it up: sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2weeks # Or limit by size: sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=100M Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: # Check how much space your logs are using journalctl --disk-usage # If it's huge (multiple GB), clean it up: sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2weeks # Or limit by size: sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=100M COMMAND_BLOCK: # Check how much space your logs are using journalctl --disk-usage # If it's huge (multiple GB), clean it up: sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2weeks # Or limit by size: sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=100M COMMAND_BLOCK: # See if swap is being hammered swapon --show vmstat 1 10 # Check for failing services systemctl --failed Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: # See if swap is being hammered swapon --show vmstat 1 10 # Check for failing services systemctl --failed COMMAND_BLOCK: # See if swap is being hammered swapon --show vmstat 1 10 # Check for failing services systemctl --failed COMMAND_BLOCK: sudo pacman -S bleachbit Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: sudo pacman -S bleachbit COMMAND_BLOCK: sudo pacman -S bleachbit COMMAND_BLOCK: yay -S stacer # or paru -S stacer Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: yay -S stacer # or paru -S stacer COMMAND_BLOCK: yay -S stacer # or paru -S stacer COMMAND_BLOCK: # Clean package cache (keeps only the 3 most recent versions) sudo paccache -r # Remove cached packages that are uninstalled sudo paccache -ruk0 # Remove orphaned packages (dependencies no longer needed) sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qtdq) # Clear user cache rm -rf ~/.cache/* # Clean systemd journal sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2weeks Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: # Clean package cache (keeps only the 3 most recent versions) sudo paccache -r # Remove cached packages that are uninstalled sudo paccache -ruk0 # Remove orphaned packages (dependencies no longer needed) sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qtdq) # Clear user cache rm -rf ~/.cache/* # Clean systemd journal sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2weeks COMMAND_BLOCK: # Clean package cache (keeps only the 3 most recent versions) sudo paccache -r # Remove cached packages that are uninstalled sudo paccache -ruk0 # Remove orphaned packages (dependencies no longer needed) sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qtdq) # Clear user cache rm -rf ~/.cache/* # Clean systemd journal sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2weeks COMMAND_BLOCK: # Set up automatic package cache cleaning sudo systemctl enable paccache.timer sudo systemctl start paccache.timer # Limit journal size permanently sudo vim /etc/systemd/journald.conf # Set: SystemMaxUse=100M # Review what starts at boot systemctl list-unit-files --state=enabled Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: # Set up automatic package cache cleaning sudo systemctl enable paccache.timer sudo systemctl start paccache.timer # Limit journal size permanently sudo vim /etc/systemd/journald.conf # Set: SystemMaxUse=100M # Review what starts at boot systemctl list-unit-files --state=enabled COMMAND_BLOCK: # Set up automatic package cache cleaning sudo systemctl enable paccache.timer sudo systemctl start paccache.timer # Limit journal size permanently sudo vim /etc/systemd/journald.conf # Set: SystemMaxUse=100M # Review what starts at boot systemctl list-unit-files --state=enabled - KDE Plasma: kwin_x11 or plasmashell memory leaks - GNOME: gnome-shell can get bloated over time - Compositors: picom, compton sometimes go rogue - baloo_file (KDE's file indexer) - tracker-miner (GNOME's indexer) - Something is running that shouldn't be - You have a memory leak - Too many services are running at startup - Your desktop environment has issues - You genuinely don't have enough RAM for your workload - Press F6 and sort by PERCENT_MEM - Look at the top 5 processes - Ask yourself: "Should this be using this much RAM/CPU?" - Browser too heavy? Reduce tabs, use a lighter browser, add more RAM - Desktop environment leaking? Restart it or switch to something lighter (i3, dwm, XFCE) - Background service running wild? Disable or reconfigure it - Indexing services? Disable them if you don't use desktop search - Use htop to identify the actual resource hog - Deal with that specific issue - Then use cleaning tools to free up disk space - Set up automatic maintenance so you don't have to think about it