Re: fam taking up cpu, do I need it?
On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:28:53 -0400
Greg Folkert <greg@gregfolkert.net> wrote:
> 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
When I installed Bluefish, I had a bit of a jam with the fam / gamin
conflict (Bluefish / GNOME wanted one and Xfce wanted the other). At
the time, I didn't really understand what they did, but based on this
thread and your comments in particular, I gather that when I leave a
file open for a while in Bluefish and meanwhile make a quick edit with
vi and then return to Bluefish, the Bluefish notification that the file
has been modified by another process is based on info received from
gamin.
Celejar
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