After a long battle with technology, Erich Newell wrote: Please don't top-post, and trim your posts. Fixed: > On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Josef Lowder wrote: >> My system seems to have slowed down quite a bit (even when I don't >> have any programs running) and I can't figure out why. You'll have to quantify this and be specific for anyone to help you. There are always *a lot* of processes running on any modern box. >> When I run 'top' I can only see the top 50 or so entries on my monitor >> and I don't know how to see what else might be there farther down the >> list. "man top" for starters. >> And when I do 'ps -ef', how can I tell which, if any, of those processes >> could or should be eliminated? Basically, if it's init, a kernel thread, X, or your WM/DE, you don't want to kill it. "ps auxw" provides more info in a better way then "ps -ef" IMHO. Take a look at the %CPU, %MEM, and RSS columns in ps auxw output to see how much CPU, total RAM, and how much of that memory is Resident for each process. >> xfs 3003 1 0 Mar07 ? 00:00:00 xfs -port -1 -daemon >> -droppriv -user xfs Font server. In general, you shouldn't need this, but some distros start one up for hysterical raisins. This doesn't use much in the way of resources. >> root 3033 1 0 Mar07 ? 00:05:21 hald hald. Right. >> root 3189 3180 69 Mar07 tty7 7-01:53:38 /etc/X11/X -deferglyphs >> 16 :0 -auth /var/run/xauth/A:0-K9voZd Look how much CPU time X has used. This is actually normal since X does a lot, but there are some distros with buggy X where X calls gettimeofday() over and over and over again for no reason. You can see this by attaching strace to X for a little while and eyeball-grepping the output. Or by restarting X and seeing if X suddenly gets a lot faster. >> root 3190 1 0 Mar07 ? 00:01:00 nifd -n >> nobody 3252 1 0 Mar07 ? 00:00:00 mDNSResponder Interesting. There's no ebuild matching "nifd" here.... >> root 3699 1 0 Mar07 ? 00:00:00 /opt/win4lin/bin/vnetd >> clamav 3775 1 0 Mar07 ? 00:00:08 /usr/bin/freshclam >> --config-file=/etc/freshclam.conf --quiet --daemon win4lin? Are you using that? Also, you probably don't need to run clamav if your box isn't running SMTP/POP services. >> joe 17264 17244 0 12:24 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/startkde >> joe 17371 17370 0 12:24 ? 00:00:00 gnome-volume-manager Why have both KDE and GNOME at the same time? Also, you need to figure out whether you want to solve security problems first or solve WM/DE slowdowns first. They're probably totally orthogonal. > FTP is also good for file distribution situations that require no > security...but in these instances I still recommend bit torrent and seeding. > Its more "net-friendly". ...unless your ISP has throttled all torrent traffic to 0.1% of available bandwidth to FIGHT TEH P1R4TES, because the only people using torrents are downloading pr0n and w4r3z. Seriously, I tried to download Planeshift (Free game, freely distributable, etcetera) using their torrents a few months back, and despite multiple seeders, got less than 1M downloaded over 8 hours. Lots of ISPs now hate torrent traffic and throttle it. FTP gets a free pass. Torrents are more technically friendly, but right now, FTP is more socially friendly. -- "Bother," said Pooh. "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump; Piglet, meet me in transporter room three." My blog and resume: http://crow202.dyndns.org:8080/wordpress/ Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss