To get Gentoo Linux to boot faster, you can disable unnessicary services (with rc-update).

But Gentoo also provides some exceptional rc scripts. These scripts allow parrallel loading of services. The result is a system which boots much faster. To enable the parallel startup of services, add or change the following line in the file /etc/conf.d/rc:

RC_PARALLEL_STARTUP="YES"

Now, when you boot your Gentoo distro, it will be ready at a glance!

To scan the current folder, with it’s underlaying folders,  use the following command (only when clamav is installed):

clamscan --log=$HOME/clamscan.log --quiet --recursive

In your home directory, the file ‘clamscan.log’ will appear. You may execute the following command to view the (filtered) results:

grep -v "Empty\|Scanning\|WARNING:\|Excluded" $HOME/clamscan.log

If the memory is very full (on Linux), you may execute the following command:

sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

All the caches are cleared now. Your system may respond a bit slower now, while the caches are being refilled.

To start a ‘fsck’ (for Windows users: a ‘checkdisk’ for Linux), you may execute the following command in your shell:

touch /forcefsck

fsck will run at next boot.

This command creates a file called ‘forcefsck’ in the root folder (‘/’). At boot time, fsck checks whether this file exists. When it does, fsck checks the harddisk.

The following command will return all files which are larger than 10Mb:

find / -size +10240000c -exec du -h {} \;