Is there a way of determining which modules, system services, drivers, and processes I can do without, and dump them so they don't load or start by default? As examples: I'm running desktops, not laptops, so I don't need any power or battery saving apps, processes, or modules running, right? I also am not using a joystick, so do I need the drivers to load??? etc, etc, etc! Thanks, Bernd
On Thursday, December 29, 2005 @ 1:18 PM, Bernd wrote:
Is there a way of determining which modules, system services, drivers, and processes I can do without, and dump them so they don't load or start by default?
As examples: I'm running desktops, not laptops, so I don't need any power or battery saving apps, processes, or modules running, right? I also am not using a joystick, so do I need the drivers to load??? etc, etc, etc!
Thanks,
Bernd
Regarding powersave, my experience was that it couldn't be disabled, only tuned down so that it causes minimum to no drain on your desktop system. This requires tinkering with the settings. And don't try to uninstall it because you'll break more system packages than you can shake a stick at. Greg Wallace
On Thursday 29 December 2005 20:16, Greg Wallace wrote:
On Thursday, December 29, 2005 @ 1:18 PM, Bernd wrote:
Is there a way of determining which modules, system services, drivers, and processes I can do without, and dump them so they don't load or start by default?
As examples: I'm running desktops, not laptops, so I don't need any power or battery saving apps, processes, or modules running, right? I also am not using a joystick, so do I need the drivers to load??? etc, etc, etc!
Thanks,
Bernd
Regarding powersave, my experience was that it couldn't be disabled, only tuned down so that it causes minimum to no drain on your desktop system. This requires tinkering with the settings. And don't try to uninstall it because you'll break more system packages than you can shake a stick at.
Thanks! Any other thoughts on other areas??? Bernd
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Thursday, December 29, 2005 @ 1:18 PM, Bernd wrote:
Regarding powersave, my experience was that it couldn't be disabled, only tuned down so that it causes minimum to no drain on your desktop system. This requires tinkering with the settings. And don't try to uninstall it because you'll break more system packages than you can shake a stick at.
Could you please elaborate about your problems? I have powersave installed because some GNOME and KDE panels depend on it, but it is turned off and I don't think it's active in any way. powersaved is off, CPU frequency scaling is not supported anyhow by my CPU. Or is it running somehow? Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joachim Schrod Email: jschrod@acm.org Roedermark, Germany
On Friday 30 December 2005 07:13, Joachim Schrod wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Thursday, December 29, 2005 @ 1:18 PM, Bernd wrote:
Regarding powersave, my experience was that it couldn't be disabled, only tuned down so that it causes minimum to no drain on your desktop system. This requires tinkering with the settings. And don't try to uninstall it because you'll break more system packages than you can shake a stick at.
Could you please elaborate about your problems?
I have powersave installed because some GNOME and KDE panels depend on it, but it is turned off and I don't think it's active in any way. powersaved is off, CPU frequency scaling is not supported anyhow by my CPU. Or is it running somehow?
My problem is not with powersave. I want to find out what running processes, loaded modules, system services, drivers, etc. I can dump to have a leaner and faster running system. Thoughts? Bernd
Bernd, On Friday 30 December 2005 07:32, bernd wrote:
On Friday 30 December 2005 07:13, Joachim Schrod wrote:
...
Could you please elaborate about your problems?
...
...
I want to find out what running processes, loaded modules, system services, drivers, etc. I can dump to have a leaner and faster running system.
I'd say the question stands. What _problem_ are you trying to solve? Basically, I'd consider this an ill-advised endeavor unless you're at least knowledgeable enough not to have to ask what components are unnecessary. However, there is a project, "SUPER," to maximize SuSE Linux performance. See <http://www.opensuse.org/SUPER>. There is another list, run on the same server, called "OpenSuSE-Optimize". If you're intent on warping and tweaking a perfectly functional system, I'd check this out rather than starting to monkey-wrench your system on your own.
Bernd
Randall Schulz
bernd wrote:
On Friday 30 December 2005 07:13, Joachim Schrod wrote:
My problem is not with powersave.
I understand that. That's why I deleted the attribution of you and asked Greg about *his* problems. :-)
I want to find out what running processes, loaded modules, system services, drivers, etc. I can dump to have a leaner and faster running system.
I don't know about your usage profile, so I cannot give any recommendations. In fact, I would not expect a system to get noticeably faster if daemons are shut down or kernel modules are unloaded -- if they're not used they won't take up much CPU resources. If I strip down a system, it's mainly for security reasons, sometimes for functionality problems -- firewalls or DMZ systems, for example. For such systems, it's easy: Any loaded module must be for a hardware part that is really in use, for iptables, or for VPN. ps -ef must not show any process where I don't know exactly what it does. E.g., on my firewall, there are currently 43 processes, including several ssh sessions with running less -S on log files, and I'm not able to strip that down further without loosing essential functionality. Any other installation would be wrong. ;-) Things to look for that you might turn off: nscd if you have a DNS/NIS/LDAP infrastructure in place. fam is said to have bad influence; but then, you might want to use its service. mdnsd is horrible, IMHO. Often program are slowed down by the need for reverse IP number lookup, a caching DNS server helps a lot here. If you have one, don't forget to add authorative zones for all private IP addresses. For real performance enhancements, you might want to look at the SUPER package repository. That will probably bring much more. If you really want to get a fast system, skip the usage of KDE and GNOME, and use a light-weight desktop environment. Classic Unix, so to say. Of course, YMMV if that is acceptable to you. I'm quite happy with fvwm -- but I'm using this kind of desktop since 1984... Happy new year, Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joachim Schrod Email: jschrod@acm.org Roedermark, Germany
Joachim Schrod wrote:
E.g., on my firewall, there are currently 43 processes, including several ssh sessions with running less -S on log files, and I'm not able to strip that down further without loosing essential functionality. Any other installation would be wrong. ;-)
I hate to reply to myself; but I want to emphasize that this `wrong' means the approach towards processes, not the firewall setup. In fact, in high-security environments I would not have any kernel modules (my kernel would not support module loading at all; that's an invitation for root kits) and especially logs would not belong on the firewall, but on a secure log server. I would also have special VPN servers. (We design and set up such things for a living. ;-) But this is not needed for my private firewall that I'm writing about here. Cheers, Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joachim Schrod Email: jschrod@acm.org Roedermark, Germany
On Friday, December 30, 2005 @ 6:14 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Thursday, December 29, 2005 @ 1:18 PM, Bernd wrote:
Regarding powersave, my experience was that it couldn't be disabled, only tuned down so that it causes minimum to no drain on your desktop system. This requires tinkering with the settings. And don't try to uninstall it because you'll break more system packages than you can shake a stick at.
Could you please elaborate about your problems?
I have powersave installed because some GNOME and KDE panels depend on it, but it is turned off and I don't think it's active in any way. powersaved is off, CPU frequency scaling is not supported anyhow by my CPU. Or is it running somehow?
Joachim
I get the same 3 or 4 error messages from powersave in the system log every time I boot. They all start with (after the timestamp) -- Linux [powersave]: ERROR I tried fiddling with the various powersave settings and the messages I get now are the fewest I could get it down to. I don't notice that this is causing me any problems, but if I could just turn powersave off completely and get rid of those messages, that would be nice (I guess it just bothers me that error messages keeps spitting out routinely every time I boot up). How did you turn powersave off? Greg Wallace
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Friday, December 30, 2005 @ 6:14 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
I get the same 3 or 4 error messages from powersave in the system log every time I boot. They all start with (after the timestamp) --
Linux [powersave]: ERROR
I had these messages only as long as powersaved was started. Try the command chkconfig -l powersaved If it reports on in any run levels, call chkconfig -d powersaved Happy new year, Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joachim Schrod Email: jschrod@acm.org Roedermark, Germany
On Sunday, January 01, 2006 @ 10:01 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Friday, December 30, 2005 @ 6:14 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
I get the same 3 or 4 error messages from powersave in the system log every time I boot. They all start with (after the timestamp) --
Linux [powersave]: ERROR
I had these messages only as long as powersaved was started.
Try the command chkconfig -l powersaved If it reports on in any run levels, call chkconfig -d powersaved
Happy new year,
Joachim
Well, that didn't quite do the trick. Powersaved was running in 2 runlevels (5 and, I think, 3). Running chkconfig -d powersaved turned it off for all levels. I rebooted and got the following -- Error Kpowersave X The powersave daemon is not running Starting it will improve performance. /usr/bin/powersaved start So now how do I get rid of this message? Greg W
Greg Wallace wrote:
Well, that didn't quite do the trick. Powersaved was running in 2 runlevels (5 and, I think, 3). Running chkconfig -d powersaved turned it off for all levels. I rebooted and got the following --
Error Kpowersave X The powersave daemon is not running Starting it will improve performance. /usr/bin/powersaved start
So now how do I get rid of this message?
I don't have kpowersave installed, so I cannot give a ready answer. Is this a system service (i.e., is kpowersave listed in chkconfig -l)? Then it can be turned off with chkconfig -d, too. Or is this a KDE service? Then the KDE control center might have a method to turn it off. Maybe one can also de-install kpowersave. I don't know which dependencies this might disturb; maybe someone else can elaborate on that. If that doesn't help, you might want to try another road: Turn on powersave again (with chkconfig -a), and enter CPUFREQD_MODULE="off" in /etc/sysconfig/powersave/cpufreq. But I don't know if that would get rid of all startup error messages of powersafe, therefore I just shut it down on my non-laptop systems. Cheers, Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joachim Schrod Email: jschrod@acm.org Roedermark, Germany
On Monday, January 02, 2006 @ 6:00 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
Well, that didn't quite do the trick. Powersaved was running in 2
runlevels
(5 and, I think, 3). Running chkconfig -d powersaved turned it off for all levels. I rebooted and got the following --
Error Kpowersave X The powersave daemon is not running Starting it will improve performance. /usr/bin/powersaved start
So now how do I get rid of this message?
I don't have kpowersave installed, so I cannot give a ready answer.
As I recall, I started to uninstall it when I first tried to clean this problem up, but I got a warning about multitudinous packages (including many YaST packages, as I recall) that would be broken if I proceeded. So, I nixed that idea.
Is this a system service (i.e., is kpowersave listed in chkconfig -l)?
Then it can be turned off with chkconfig -d, too.
That's what caused the error message to start showing up each time I logged on.
Or is this a KDE service? Then the KDE control center might have a method to turn it off.
I don't think that it's part of KDE. I think it's at a lower level than that.
Maybe one can also de-install kpowersave. I don't know which dependencies this might disturb; maybe someone else can elaborate on that.
Yep, that breaks a lot of things.
If that doesn't help, you might want to try another road: Turn on powersave
again (with chkconfig -a), and enter CPUFREQD_MODULE="off" in /etc/sysconfig/powersave/cpufreq.
That's the setting I am (and have been) using. The 3 error messages still show up in the log.
But I don't know if that would get rid of all startup error messages of powersafe,
It won't.
therefore I just shut it down on my non-laptop systems.
And you don't get the error message dialog I get each time you log in? Did you have to change a setting somewhere to tell KDE not to put out that message? Not sure why you can turn it off and not see any errors while I get the error dialog doing the same thing.
Cheers, Joachim
Greg Wallace
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Monday, January 02, 2006 @ 6:00 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
I don't have kpowersave installed, so I cannot give a ready answer.
As I recall, I started to uninstall it when I first tried to clean this problem up, but I got a warning about multitudinous packages (including many YaST packages, as I recall) that would be broken if I proceeded. So, I nixed that idea.
Is this a system service (i.e., is kpowersave listed in chkconfig -l)?
Then it can be turned off with chkconfig -d, too.
That's what caused the error message to start showing up each time I logged on.
We seem to have some misunderstanding here. You might mix up two packages, let's spell out my hypothesis: There are two packages: 1) powersave Includes kernel modules and a daemon. There are some dependencies on that package, it can not be de-installed. It can be turned off by the command chkconfig -d powersaved 2) kpowersave (with a leading k) The KDE front end. It uses powersave. As far as yast2 tells, no dependencies exist on this package. It can be safely de-installed. I just looked it up on my 10.0 DVD, you have _not_ turned off kpowersave with chkconfig -d, that is not possible: kpowersave is `just' a KDE program and not a daemon. As far as I understand your last email, you have turned off powersave (package 1) and now get error messages from kpowersave (package 2) because powersave is not running. So my recommendation was to try to de-install kpowersave -- when you don't use powersave, you don't need the KDE front end to it either. I.e., call yast2 sw_single Search for power. Make sure that powersave is checked, and that kpowersave gets de-installed. Click on Check dependencies -- are there really errors? If yes, which package is named that depends on kpowersave.
therefore I just shut it down on my non-laptop systems.
And you don't get the error message dialog I get each time you log in? Did you have to change a setting somewhere to tell KDE not to put out that message?
Again: I don't have kpowersave installed at all, just powersave. That's why I'm partly guessing. (But the guess is founded on a lookup of dependencies in yast and the package content of kpowersave, and not some wild shot in the dark.) I won't ever get an error message during KDE startup -- I don't use the KDE desktop, just some KDE programs. Joachim -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joachim Schrod Email: jschrod@acm.org Roedermark, Germany
On Tuesday, January 03, 2006 @ 1:57 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Monday, January 02, 2006 @ 6:00 AM, Joachim Schrod wrote:
I don't have kpowersave installed, so I cannot give a ready answer.
As I recall, I started to uninstall it when I first tried to clean this problem up, but I got a warning about multitudinous packages (including many YaST packages, as I recall) that would be broken if I proceeded. So, I nixed that idea.
Is this a system service (i.e., is kpowersave listed in chkconfig -l)?
Then it can be turned off with chkconfig -d, too.
That's what caused the error message to start showing up each time I logged on.
We seem to have some misunderstanding here. You might mix up two packages, let's spell out my hypothesis:
There are two packages:
1) powersave Includes kernel modules and a daemon. There are some dependencies on that package, it can not be de-installed. It can be turned off by the command chkconfig -d powersaved
2) kpowersave (with a leading k) The KDE front end. It uses powersave. As far as yast2 tells, no dependencies exist on this package. It can be safely de-installed.
I just looked it up on my 10.0 DVD, you have _not_ turned off kpowersave with chkconfig -d, that is not possible: kpowersave is `just' a KDE program and not a daemon.
As far as I understand your last email, you have turned off powersave (package 1) and now get error messages from kpowersave (package 2) because powersave is not running. So my recommendation was to try to de-install kpowersave -- when you don't use powersave, you don't need the KDE front end to it either.
I.e., call yast2 sw_single Search for power. Make sure that powersave is checked, and that kpowersave gets de-installed. Click on Check dependencies -- are there really errors? If yes, which package is named that depends on kpowersave.
therefore I just shut it down on my non-laptop systems.
And you don't get the error message dialog I get each time you log in? Did you have to change a setting somewhere to tell KDE not to put out that message?
Again: I don't have kpowersave installed at all, just powersave. That's why I'm partly guessing. (But the guess is founded on a lookup of dependencies in yast and the package content of kpowersave, and not some wild shot in the dark.) I won't ever get an error message during KDE startup -- I don't use the KDE
desktop, just some KDE programs.
Joachim
Bingo. I uninstalled kpowersave, turned disabled powersave in xinetd and that got rid of the error messages I had been getting in the log and also eliminated the kpowersave message I was getting. I didn't pick up that there were two different pieces of software at play here, even though the KDE message clearly did say kpowersave, not powersave. Thanks for straightening me out on this! Greg Wallace
participants (4)
-
bernd -
Greg Wallace -
Joachim Schrod -
Randall R Schulz