Arch Linux

Gauvenator

Member

Registered: 2008-04-03

Posts: 172

fam

Fam has started hogging resources lately and I'm not sure why.  I'll be doing my thing, listening to music, trolling forums...and then fam starts hogging cpu (never more than %50 cpu tho)  If I restart fam, then it stops hogging.  Is it safe to restart fam like this?  will it cause any problems?

#/etc/rc.d/fam restart

I'm not sure exactly what programs use fam for...but I'm wondering if it does anything involving data that could be lost if it is restarted.

Last edited by Gauvenator (2008-06-02 02:23:52)

BC

Member

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 83

Re: fam

You shouldn't have any problems restarting fam like that.  As an alternative, you could try gamin.

Redroar

Member

Registered: 2008-03-17

Posts: 200

Re: fam

Honestly, I prefer gamin. For one thing, fam completely breaks FUSE mounts for me, and gamin doesn't. Also, it seems gamin uses less resources in general.

But if you want to stick with fam then it's perfectly fine to restart it like that.

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peets

Member

From: Montreal

Registered: 2007-01-11

Posts: 936

Website

Re: fam

inotify!

mintcoffee

Member

From: Waterloo, ON

Registered: 2007-10-05

Posts: 120

Website

Re: fam

If you're using KDE / GNOME you don't need to run FAM. If you're using XFCE you're out of luck.. try gamin. Or start getting use to manually refreshing directories

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watsonalgas

Member

Registered: 2007-01-15

Posts: 92

Re: fam

I am also getting about 90% cpu usage with FAM for some reason.  I really only use it for pcmanfm, so is gamin a good alternative for fam?  It must be a bug because it recently started but not sure under which circumstances...

mintcoffee

Member

From: Waterloo, ON

Registered: 2007-10-05

Posts: 120

Website

Re: fam

I am also getting about 90% cpu usage with FAM for some reason.  I really only use it for pcmanfm, so is gamin a good alternative for fam?  It must be a bug because it recently started but not sure under which circumstances...

AKAIK, gamin is a drop-in replacement for fam. I had the high CPU usage problem with fam as well, couldn't really figure out what caused it..

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Arch on a Thinkpad T400s

Gauvenator

Member

Registered: 2008-04-03

Posts: 172

Re: fam

So to use gamin, just remove fam from the rc.conf daemons array and pacman -S gamin?  No daemon for gamin right?

Edit:  nevermind, gamin conflicts so it doesn't install unless I remove fam.  But I get these errors when removing fam:

error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: gnome-vfs: requires fam
:: kdelibs: requires fam

Should I force it's removal?  Gamin should take its place right?

Last edited by Gauvenator (2008-06-02 19:57:15)

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: fam

Should I force it's removal?  Gamin should take its place right?

Yes. And what you said before is correct. Just remove fam from the daemons array. Gamin will start automatically when needed.

Redroar

Member

Registered: 2008-03-17

Posts: 200

Re: fam

What DE do you use? Neither Nautilus or Konqueror need fam running as a daemon. Thunar, PCManFM, etc can use either fam or gamin, though in my experience they prefer gamin.

As far as forcing it, I can't think of why it would break things....but I don't know. But if you are using Nautilus or Konq, just take it off of your daemons list and leave it - you'll be fine.

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skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: fam

[skottish@iasE ~]$ pacman -Qi gamin | grep fam
Provides       : fam  
Conflicts With : fam

It's either one or the other, not both.

Gauvenator

Member

Registered: 2008-04-03

Posts: 172

Re: fam

I use Gnome with Nautilus.  I did it and so far so good thanks for all the advice.

ConnorBehan

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Long Island NY

Registered: 2007-07-05

Posts: 1,359

Website

Re: fam

I uninstalled fam last month and so far I'm very pleased with the performance increase. The bug can't be that new... fam has been eating up 80% of my CPU for at least 6 months and only now has it made me mad enough to uninstall it. I wonder what the bug was... could it be that fam was checking for alterations as often as possible instead of something sane like every few seconds?

I'm about to try gamin. I hear that integration with inotify is the main reason why people like gamin better. Do I have to download a separate package for inotify? or enable a kernel parameter for inotify?

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skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: fam

I'm about to try gamin. I hear that integration with inotify is the main reason why people like gamin better. Do I have to download a separate package for inotify? or enable a kernel parameter for inotify?

inotify is built into the kernel. There's nothing left to install other than gamin.

luuuciano

Member

Registered: 2007-01-27

Posts: 311

Re: fam

krusader needs fam?
it is safe to remove fam if I use krusader?

if yes... will I need to install gamin after remove fam?

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