Emacs speed up 1000%

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I'm still NOT satisfied with my Emacs performance after applying below tricks:

  • autoload packages
  • idle-load packages
  • compiling *.el to *.elc

After some research, I found I could make my Emacs 1000% fast in 1 minute.

Please note I'm talking about the general performance not just startup time.

The solution is really simple.

Since I'm a Linux guy and my computer got enough (24G) memory. I can place my setup into memory.

Step 1, insert below line into /etc/fstab and restart computer:

tmpfs       /tmp        tmpfs       nodev,nosuid,size=8G    0   0

Step 2, run the script "emacs2ram":

#!/bin/sh

if [ -z "$1" ];then
    echo "Usage:"
    echo "  emacs2ram start"
    echo "  emacs2ram restore"
    exit 1
fi

if [ "$1" == "start" ];then
    backup=emacs.d-backup
    link=.emacs.d
    volatile=/tmp/.emacs.d-$USER

    IFS=
    set -efu

    cd ~/

    if [ ! -r $volatile ]; then
        mkdir -m0700 $volatile
    fi

    # link -> volatie does not exist
    if [ "$(readlink $link)" != "$volatile" ]; then
        # backup project at first
        mv $link $backup
        # create the link
        ln -s $volatile $link
    fi

    if [ -e $link/.unpacked ]; then
        echo "Sync .emacs.d from memory to backup ..."
        rsync -avq --delete --exclude .unpacked ./$link/ ./$backup/
        echo "DONE!"
    else
        echo "Sync .emacs.d from disk to memory ..."
        rsync -avq ./$backup/ ./$link/
        touch $link/.unpacked
        echo "DONE!"
    fi
else
    echo "Moving .emacs.d back to disk ..."
    backup=$2-backup
    link=$2
    volatile=/tmp/$2-$USER
    cd ~/projs
    rm $link && mv $backup $link && rm -rf $volatile
    echo "DONE!"
fi

That's all! Please enjoy Emacs as usual.

The original script is from ArchLinux Wiki. I learned this technique eight years ago. I'm just wondering why I need eight years to apply it?

BTW, I've also moved all my projects into memory, using similar scripts.

UPDATE 1: I also publicize my project-managing script at gist. It's almost same as emacs2ram.

UPDATE 2: Now I use vmtouch which is easier to use and more light weight. Run vmtouch -vt ~/.emacs.d to place the directory into memory.

Unfortunately, vmtouch doesn't support Windows. You can convert my bash script to DOS batch script. Basically the script copies the directory into ram disk and create a link to the directory in memory. You can use ImDisk Toolkit to create ram disk.

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