On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 15:44 -0400, H.S. wrote: > Recently, I noticed that fam was taking up quite a bit of my CPU on > Debian Testing running 2.6.18 kernel. This happened especially when I > was connected to a webdav server and had remote files listed in > konqueror. Going through some past list message here and also through > google, I concluded I can try just uninstalling it. So far, after > removing fam, my system hasn't slowed down as before. So, why would I > need fam if having it just causes a problem and not having it apparently > hasn't troubled me at all? It is called FAM for a reason. FAM == File Alteration Monitor If you are currently modifying or have some files open, it makes sure that the processes that have them open are notified that another process (should you open a file with something else) has opened them. If you change these files the other processes are are notified and given a single to "do what they do" in this case. If they don't care... then FAM has done its job. If they do care... then FAM has done its job. It is things like Trash, IMAP servers, WebDAV servers and clients to notify you "HEY, blargenfingle file changed as we have it open. Do you want to reload it or blah.blah.blah this fizzering?" This is an important feature, the reason FAM was taking a bit of CPU time, it was monitoring the actions the other programs were taking on the files you had open. Given that you were dealing with a webdav server, probably lotsa files were open. If you are not actually running any servers or have other people on your machine, you should be able to survive without it. But remember you might have probs, or you might not. Depends on what you are doing. -- greg, greg@gregfolkert.net Novell's Directory Services is a competitive product to Microsoft's Active Directory in much the same way that the Saturn V is a competitive product to those dinky little model rockets that kids light off down at the playfield. -- Thane Walkup
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