what processes can I do without? How to prevent them?

[ryancw]

I've always been amazed at all the processes running on my computer. I use it as a basic desktop PC: word processing, emailing, web browsing, some statistics work, and the kids play games. No web server, no wireless networking, nothing fancy. Here are all the processes:

[ryancwrf@ryanlibranet:~]$ ps -A
PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:00 init
2 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
3 ? 00:00:00 events/0
4 ? 00:00:00 khelper
9 ? 00:00:00 kthread
18 ? 00:00:00 kacpid
85 ? 00:00:00 kblockd/0
149 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
150 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
152 ? 00:00:00 aio/0
98 ? 00:00:00 khubd
151 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
153 ? 00:00:00 jfsIO
154 ? 00:00:00 jfsCommit
155 ? 00:00:00 jfsSync
156 ? 00:00:00 xfslogd/0
157 ? 00:00:00 xfsdatad/0
158 ? 00:00:00 xfsbufd
748 ? 00:00:00 kseriod
814 ? 00:00:00 ata/0
896 ? 00:00:00 reiserfs/0
929 ? 00:00:00 udevd
2432 ? 00:00:00 shpchpd_event
2772 ? 00:00:00 pump
2919 ? 00:00:00 ifplugd
4228 ? 00:00:00 portmap
4427 ? 00:00:00 syslogd
4473 ? 00:00:00 klogd
4483 ? 00:00:00 hpiod
4486 ? 00:00:00 python
4546 ? 00:00:00 acpid
4562 ? 00:00:00 cupsd
4581 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon-1
4586 ? 00:00:01 hald
4595 ? 00:00:00 inetd
4598 ? 00:00:00 lisa
4629 ? 00:00:00 netdaemon
4736 ? 00:00:00 master
4777 ? 00:00:00 pickup
4778 ? 00:00:00 qmgr
4850 ? 00:00:00 S20xprint
4851 ? 00:00:00 S20xprint
4852 ? 00:00:01 Xprt
4853 ? 00:00:00 S20xprint
4862 ? 00:00:00 famd
4865 ? 00:00:00 atd
4868 ? 00:00:00 cron
4915 ? 00:00:00 gdm
4921 ? 00:00:00 gdm
4922 tty1 00:00:00 getty
4923 tty2 00:00:00 getty
4924 tty3 00:00:00 getty
4925 tty4 00:00:00 getty
4926 tty5 00:00:00 getty
4947 tty6 00:00:00 getty
5050 ? 00:00:09 Xorg
5166 ? 00:00:01 icewm-experimen
5224 ? 00:00:00 ssh-agent
5235 ? 00:00:00 libranet-sessio
5239 ? 00:00:00 libranet-sessio
5240 ? 00:00:00 libranet-sessio
5241 ? 00:00:02 nautilus
5242 ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-
5243 ? 00:00:00 gnome-volume-ma
5245 ? 00:00:01 gconfd-2
5256 ? 00:00:00 bonobo-activati
5262 ? 00:00:00 xscreensaver
5268 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
5289 ? 00:00:00 mapping-daemon
5308 ? 00:00:03 gnome-terminal
5309 ? 00:00:00 gnome-pty-helpe
5310 pts/0 00:00:00 bash
5335 pts/0 00:00:00 ps

And that's without starting up any apps! They all start automatically when I turn on the machine.

Can I do without some of those? If so, how do I keep them from starting up?

thanks.

[Lavene]

Well... hard to say exactly but here are a few sugestions:

If you don't run a network you can probably stop:
lisa, sshd, inetd.

I like to stop famd because it has a nasty tendency to run away.
You can probably reduce the number of gettys. You do that in the file /etc/inittab
If you don't have a printer you can stop cupsd.

My favorite tool for controlling services is 'rcconf'.

Tina :)

[xmixahlx]

yeah... i'd kill all the gnome* processes :)

...also, you could probably prune these services:
inetd
lisa
netdaemon
master
pickup
qmgr
famd
cupsd (printer?)

truthfully, you probably won't see much gain from deselecting these for startup... (except famd, which is sporadically a resource-killer)

rcconf and apt-get --purge remove


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