My main server runs Ubuntu Server 12.04 with the XFCE desktop (I use Teamviewer for remote access) and has been happily sipping electricity for months with no issues except one – files and folders would open VERY slowly the first time you accessed them after boot. After that there would be no issue. Finally after a lot of digging I have come up with a solution.
I found that there was actually two issues going on at the same time. The first one was permissions. I noticed that when Thunar (file manager) was opened as root there was no speed issue but as a normal user it was very slow. To rectify this I set the ‘group’ permission to read/write and voila it did speed up. The speed was still a bit slow for my liking so I kept on digging.
The main culprit turned out to be two packages called gvfs-fuse and gvfs-backend. Gvfs is a userspace virtual filesystem which as it turns out makes Thunar run really slowly. Remove these two packages and watch your files and folders open significantly faster.
Hope this helps someone with a similar problem.
About the Author
Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.
For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.