too many startup processes?
 

I installed lots of packages when I installed fedora 8, and now I notice
a rather huge number of processes are running, even when I am not
running any applications. I wonder whether anyone knows what is
important (to be always running) and not. I list what is running below:

ConsoleKit
acpid
anacron
arptables_jf
atd
auditd
autofs
avahi-daemon
bluetooth
canna
cobblerd
cpuspeed
crond
cups
dhcp6s
dhcpd
dhcrelay
firstboot
fyre-cluster
haldaemon
heartbeat
ip6tables
iptables
irqbalance
isdn
kudzu
ldirectord
libvirtd
mdmonitor
messagebus
nasd
netfs
network
nfslock
nvidia
openct
pcscd
qemu
restorecond
rpcbind
rpcgssd
rpcidmapd
rsyslog
scsi_reserve
sendmail
setroubleshoot
smolt
snortd
sshd
sysstat
udev-post
wine
xend
xendomains
xinetd
yum-updatesd

What can/should I uncheck? I didn't realize "install" means "activate". :-o
But it kind of looks that way, huh?

Dear,

I am not sure , What are the services required by you. It depends on your usage.
You can use "ntsysv" and choose the services, you want to start at start-up.

compare to vanilla
 

I started to research every one of those processes, but then I realized that is
not sufficient - I don't know which are required by Linux itself, and which are
required by other important/necessary/fundamental processes.

So, what I'm really asking for one of two kinds of help:
1: if you know these processes, tell me from experience which are crucial.
2: if you don't, tell me which your minimalist or vanilla/default system has.

Thanks.

PS: I do agree, in the long run, that it is best/wise to know and understand
what is happening on our own computers. So in principle, I agree with you.

Here is a services guide I have used before:

http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-services-f8.html

I'd say the rule of thumb is if you don't know for sure you don't need it, I wouldn't turn it off.

Thanks! The guide is very helpful.