Linux isn’t really known for bloat, and for the most part it succeeds at staying lean. But there are still some very specific situations where your system can take far longer to boot than it should.
While there are some amazing lightweight apps that you can use on Linux, they do nothing for slow startup times. Instead, the real slowdown often comes from a few odd processes that quietly run in the background and are worth disabling if you want your system to feel snappier.
NetworkManager-wait-online.service
Your Wi-Fi can figure itself out after booting
NetworkManager-wait-online has a simple job. It waits for your device to fully connect to a network before the rest of the system finishes booting. This matters on servers or setups that rely on network drivers or scripts that must run only after the network is ready. On a regular laptop or desktop, though, there is no real benefit to holding up the entire boot process.
Your system can start normally, and let the network processes come up in the background. The slowdown happens because this service blocks everything until your Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection is marked as online. That includes talking to your router, waiting for DHCP to assign IP addresses and confirm connectivity. If your Wi-Fi is slow to connect, or you are not near a network at all, it waits for a timeout instead.
Depending on the situation you’re in, it can easily shave 4–8 seconds off of your boot time. There are a few cases where you should keep it enabled though, like if you rely on something like network-based login. But in most situations it shouldn’t apply. I would suggest trying disabling it, and see for yourself if it breaks any part of your workflow. You can disable the service by entering this command:
sudo systemctl mask NetworkManager-wait-online.service
This stops the service from blocking your boot. Your network will still come up normally after a few seconds, but you’ll get to your desktop quicker.
snapd.service
Flatpaks are better anyway
This only applies if you’re using a distro like Ubuntu, but I would just tell you to stop using Snaps altogether. Snaps are Ubuntu’s universal app format that bundles everything an app needs into one package and runs it in a sort of container. The main purpose behind this is security, but the bigger consequence of this is that Snap apps are slower than their Flatpak (or any other) counterparts.
Canonical has also pushed Snaps a bit too aggressively over the years and the backend that actually powers them is proprietary, which does not sit well with me.
The problem is that the snapd service is always around, managing apps in the background. Since each Snap also lives in its own compressed image that needs to be mounted, it adds even more overhead during boot.
This Linux file manager is so good it ruined File Explorer for me
Take notes, Microsoft.
And the problem will keep on getting worse and worse with more Snap packages you install. This was actually one of the biggest problems I had with Ubuntu, before I eventually switched to Fedora Silverblue, where I did not have to deal with Snap at all.
There are a few reasons you might not want to disable snapd completely. On Ubuntu, some core apps are shipped only as Snaps, like the default Firefox build. The Snap Store itself also needs snapd to work, and future updates for any Snap apps you keep will obviously stop arriving if the service is gone.
If you are sure you want it gone, you can disable and block it with:
sudo systemctl mask snapd.service snapd.socket snapd.seeded.service
If you rely on Snap only software, or you do not want to hunt for Flatpak or deb alternatives (or whatever option(s) you have on your distro), it is better to leave it alone.
ModemManager.service
Important for the 5 people that still use LTE dongles
ModemManager is a service that handles mobile broadband devices like network USB dongles and built-in LTE modems. If your laptop has one of those, which is quite rare these days, you’ll definitely be needing it, but in general you can disable it and be good.
Almost every major distro installs it by default, even though the hardware it handles is pretty niche. You usually start noticing the slowdown once you check your systemd logs. ModemManager sits around waiting for a response from hardware that simply does not exist, which drags out the boot process for no real reason.
It’s really strange that it’s shipped by default on so many distributions, even when most people will never use something like in-built LTE on Linux.
There are a few situations where disabling it might be a bad idea. If your laptop actually has a cellular modem, or you sometimes plug in a 4G or 5G USB stick, you should leave it enabled because it handles everything from SIM detection to connection management. Without it, those devices simply would not work. For everyone else, especially on desktops, it is usually safe to turn it off.
You can disable and block it with:
sudo systemctl mask ModemManager.service
Your network connections will work normally, and you will not waste time waiting for hardware you do not have.
Desktop environments can add more boot overhead than you think
GNOME is pretty, but not fast
A desktop environment is not a process in the most technical sense, but it still has a very real impact on how fast your system reaches the login screen. This is especially true if you are on an older machine, or, for some reason, still using an HDD as your boot drive in 2025.
Heavier environments like GNOME add a lot of background processes and components that will definitely slow down your startup. Most people would recommend KDE as the next best option, but if you’re struggling with boot times in the first place, I would suggest you use something even lighter like XFCE, which barely adds anything on top of the base system.
Even though none of this shows up as as single process you can disable, the overall package does contribute heavily towards your boot times.
Sorry, Linux fans: This OS is actually the better Windows replacement
Not Linux, not Windows. Something better.
You can still go back if you break something
if you run into any issues after disabling any of these services, enabling them back again is super easy. Just use the same command you used earlier, and replace mask with unmask instead.
If you still want to go even lighter, there are some great lightweight distros you can try on your machine, and you can still get surprisingly far on even decades-old hardware.
