[kde-linux] Re: Getting rid of irritating CPU-sucking parasites...?

[Duncan]

David J Iannucci posted on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:56:42 -0600 as excerpted:

> So... I'm one of those people who's still mostly running KDE 3.5,
> except... I've upgraded to (currently) 4.4.5 for kontact, kmail,
> korganizer because I want the security and other improvements for these.
> 
> Briefly, the reason I'm writing to complain is that these apps seem to
> start up background processes on my machine (Gentoo Linux) called
> "virtuoso-t" and "nepomukservices" (2 of the latter).  Most of the time,
> these things run for a short while after I cold-boot the machine (I see
> them with "top"), and then go away.  If that's all it is, I can deal
> with it. Right now, though, although my uptime is over 2 days, they are
> still running, near the top of my process table, and sucking CPU.
> 
> In my configuration of KDE4 packages, I've tried like heck to avoid the
> semantic desktop and other "helpful" nonsense, although I've been forced
> into it in some cases. I know nepomuk is related to that, somehow.
> 
> I *really* like kmail... from a user perspective it's by far the best
> email "thick" client app I've used.  And I quite like korganizer too
> (although not quite as much :-). I can assure you if it weren't for
> these facts, I would not be using any part of KDE4. Don't mean to
> "troll", just telling it like it is.
> 
> What I want to know is... can I stop these parasite processes from
> hanging around in the background on my machine?

Hi fellow gentooer. =:^)

They can be stopped... yes.  See the manual method below, or you may try 
the GUI method if you have enough of kde merged to do so.

The GUI settings are located in kcontrol, inaccurately called 
systemsettings in kde4 (inaccurately because they're mostly user-specific, 
kde-specific settings, not the user independent settings applying not just 
to kde that the new name suggests).  Note that with kde 4.5, the kcontrol 
(aka systemsettings, but as I explained above, it's still kcontrol to me 
as that's actually accurate, unlike the new name!!) organization changed.  
I'm not sure where the 4.4 setting is, but in 4.6 and presumably 4.5, look 
under Workspace Appearance and Behavior, in the Desktop Search applet.  On 
the basic settings tab, turn off the Strigi file indexer, and Nepomuk 
Semantic Desktop Search.  That should disable most of it.  You will still 
see related stub-services in your top listing, but that should stop the 
CPU hogging. 

For the manual method, take a look at $KDEHOME/share/config/
nepomukserverrc. (On Gentoo, if $KDEHOME isn't set locally, the default 
location is ~/.kde4 .)  Of course, if you're doing it manually, do it from 
a fresh boot without X running, as root, or otherwise ensure that the 
various kde4 apps aren't running before editing.  Note that I've not 
actually tried the manual method, but this looks to be the place to 
control it.

This is what I have here, with nepomuk disabled using the GUI:

[Basic Settings]
Start Nepomuk=false

[Service-nepomukmigration1]
autostart=false

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
autostart=false


There's also a main settings section which shouldn't matter with it 
disabled, except the storage dir setting, which you can use to find the 
database.  With nepomuk disabled, you may wish to remove that database, 
which was nearly 5 gigs in size here, before I killed it!

Meanwhile, note that a number of semantic desktop CPU-hogging related bugs 
have been fixed since the kde 4.4.5 you're currently running, so if that 
doesn't do it, I'd urge you to upgrade, because there ARE some related 
bugs fixed since 4.4.  I'd suggest 4.6.1, the latest, but if you're 
conservative you may be more comfortable with 4.5.5, the last of the 
monthly 4.5 bugfix releases before 4.6.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman