heatsinks on the cpu and memory

OC to turbo

(i set memory split to 16mb during compile, 256 for regular use)

disable the terminal for serial connection

I only use SSH now, never use samba or the USB copying service (I never install/enable those)

Leave nothing extra plugged into the pi, including the keyboard (i only use a controller)

I then run a bash script with “sudo su”:

=====

sed -i ‘s/#hdmi_group=1/hdmi_group=1/g’ /boot/config.txt

sed -i ‘s/#hdmi_mode=1/hdmi_mode=4/g’ /boot/config.txt

echo -e “avoid_safe_mode=1

avoid_pwm_pll=1

isp_freq=0

h264_freq=0” >> /boot/config.txt

sed -i ‘s/elevator=deadline/cgroup_enable=memory elevator=noop/g’ /boot/cmdline.txt

echo “CONF_SWAPSIZE=512” > /etc/dphys-swapfile

dphys-swapfile setup

dphys-swapfile swapon

sed -i ‘s/vm.swappiness=1/vm.swappiness=10/g’ /etc/sysctl.conf

echo ‘vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50’ >> /etc/sysctl.conf

sed -i ‘s/defaults,noatime/defaults,noatime,nodiratime/g’ /etc/fstab

apt-get -y remove –purge rsyslog

apt-get -y install inetutils-syslogd

service inetutils-syslogd stop

for file in /var/log/*.log /var/log/mail.* /var/log/debug /var/log/syslog; do [ -f “$file” ] && rm -f “$file”; done

for dir in fsck news; do [ -d “/var/log/$dir” ] && rm -rf “/var/log/$dir”; done

echo -e “*.*;mail.none;cron.none\t -/var/log/messages

cron.*\t -/var/log/cron

mail.*\t -/var/log/mail” > /etc/syslog.conf

mkdir -p /etc/logrotate.d

echo -e “/var/log/cron

/var/log/mail

/var/log/messages {

\trotate 4

\tweekly

\tmissingok

\tnotifempty

\tcompress

\tsharedscripts

\tpostrotate

\t/etc/init.d/inetutils-syslogd reload >/dev/null

\tendscript

}” > /etc/logrotate.d/inetutils-syslogd

service inetutils-syslogd start

apt-get install -y dropbear openssh-client

/etc/init.d/ssh stop

sed -i ‘s/NO_START=1/NO_START=0/g’ /etc/default/dropbear

/etc/init.d/dropbear start

update-rc.d ssh disable

sed -i ‘/[3-6]:23:respawn:\/sbin\/getty 38400 tty[3-6]/s%^%#%g’ /etc/inittab

setupcon

dpkg-reconfigure dash

=====

Please be careful, if you don’t understand whats going on you probably shouldn’t be using it but it should be safe.

If you are really hardcore:

1. do not use a splash screen

2. delete the simple theme for ES, use no themes!

3. do not use any scraped data for the games

4. compile just what you want, locally on your pi, don’t use the pre-compiled binaries if you don’t have to

the guys who maintain this project have done a REALLY great job at creating an extremely slimmed down image. i would work with that, delete ES/retropie stuff and compile just what i wanted or download just the binaries that i wanted