By drupalson on

How do I make Drupal run significantly faster locally?
It seems that the page request when working in Drupal takes me about
a minimum of 2 to a maximum of 10 seconds at the admin menu with lots of content like modules,
i think it'll will go even higher since I haven't put any content yet, like nothing at all but only installed those top installed modules. And did the Performance caching under Configuration already.

So, can you guys list the "THINGS" how to make Drupal run so much better than before?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Please ^^?

Should getting a Macbook Air a wise choice? It'll be a 2nd hand, so it wud be 35-40% cheaper.
BTW, does Mac OS environment any good with Drupal?

What do you think guys?
Thanks for taking the time to read and for being awesome :}

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x

Comments

Jaypan’s picture

Jaypan commented

First, if you are doing your development on Windows, you will find OSX much better, as it gives you access to a native terminal, which in turn lets you use Drush and GIT, two tools that any Drupal developer should learn to improve their workflow. If you are coming from a linux environment, then you already have access to this. I would never go back to developing on Windows though, having made the switch to OSX a few years back.

Next, to make your site run faster:

1) The more modules you use, the slower the page load (every page load). So see if there aren't some modules that you don't really need as much
2) Use a php caching system such as memcache or acp
3) Turn on the built in Drupal caching mechanisms for CSS/JS, blocks etc
4) Install the Boost module, which will cache pages for anonymous users
5) Use the devel module to examine which function calls are taking the most time on your pages, and use this as a basis on how to restructure your code (or what modules you may want to get rid of)

There are a few suggestions for you.

drupalson’s picture

drupalson commented

Thank you for the awesome tips and guidelines
:] can't wait to get a held of Mac OS soon. lol

btw, what do you mean by

Drush and GIT, two tools that any Drupal developer should learn to improve their workflow.

I know Drush but GIT?

Um, Anyone here who wishes to add the list above
are most welcomed. :]
Thanks! ^

Jaypan’s picture

Jaypan commented

GIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29

Heine’s picture

Heine commented

GIT is a crossplatform version control system. It is also available for Windows in various packages. See eg https://code.google.com/p/msysgit/

Heine’s picture

Heine commented

Step 0 is to measure (devel, xhprof, xdebug profiler) what takes so long. Then fix it.

Most common causes and solutions :

  • Database connectivity: use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost as the provided database host in settings.php.
  • PHP compilation speed: make sure APC is enabled and has sufficient cache memory (use the apc.php script to check clears).
  • Check your mysql configuration, my-small.ini is generally insufficient for a responsive server.

    • MacOS is OK for Drupal development.

milodesc’s picture

milodesc
he/him
commented

Database connectivity: use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost as the provided database host in settings.php.

Why is that using 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost can make Drupal run noticeably faster? I can't imagine translating "localhost" to 127.0.0.1 via the hosts file takes much time.

Jaypan’s picture

Jaypan commented

It still has to happen with each request, and a single page load has a lot of requests.

Heine’s picture

Heine commented

Because (and this is AFAIK) localhost lookup by the MySQL PHP client defaults to the ipv6 address where no-one is listening, then retries on the ipv4 adres after a short but significant timeout.

This is compounded by lookups MySQL makes when checking the user@host that made the connection.

milodesc’s picture

milodesc
he/him
commented

Interesting!

This post and this question seem to confirm what you're saying.

Thanks!

Jaypan’s picture

Jaypan commented

Upon reading those links, it appears that it's only an issue on windows servers.

drupalson’s picture

drupalson commented

Hello, thank you for the time to write them. I really appreciate it.
I'm new and i want to know and learn. :]
There questions i like to ran over and hope to understand it well better, excuse me if my questions are somewhat newbiesh.

2) Use a php caching system such as memcache or acp

how do i get them and how do i set memcache or acp with drupal?

3) Turn on the built in Drupal caching mechanisms for CSS/JS, blocks etc

Home » Administration » Configuration » Development > Performance
This is correct path right? and check all boxes. lol

5) Use the devel module to examine which function calls are taking the most time on your pages, and use this as a basis on how to restructure your code (or what modules you may want to get rid of)

Step 0 is to measure (devel, xhprof, xdebug profiler) what takes so long. Then fix it.

how do i access all these 3 devel, xhprof and xdebug profiler?
went to devel and xhprof is integrated but needs to be installed and set.
which takes me to this site http://techportal.inviqa.com/2009/12/01/profiling-with-xhprof/
what is xdebug profiler?

Database connectivity: use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost as the provided database host in settings.php.

how do I do this please? i can get into settings.php and from there i dont know what precisely to do.
I'm using Dev Desktop from Acquia. And my local host address would be something like "examplesite:8082/" in url address

PHP compilation speed: make sure APC is enabled and has sufficient cache memory (use the apc.php script to check clears).
Check your mysql configuration, my-small.ini is generally insufficient for a responsive server.
MacOS is OK for Drupal development.

hmmm, may i ask for steps?
if it bothers, u really don't have to, but if u have time and willing, u can write them :>

Thanks once again ^^ and Godbless