Lots of Processes in system monitor

gauntalus · 02-09-2005, 03:53 PM

I was just looking through my system monitor and it seems like its listing a couple things several times, for instance, I have 4 instances of "gweather-applet-2" running, and 3 instances of "firefox-bin", but I only have one firefox window open, and to my knowledge only one weather applet :-) Is there anything that could be causes processes to pile up? Could someone suggest a good way to keep tabs on your process listing and how to know what should and shouldn't be there?

foo_bar_foo · 02-09-2005, 04:25 PM

it's just multi threading -- it's a good thing

cavalier · 03-03-2005, 12:03 PM

An interesting command that I just learned about can help you see this multithreading in context.

Code:

watch ps -Hfu$LOGNAME

That'll show you the processes running as the user you're currently logged in as, in a heirarchy. That way, each of the firefox-bin processes is shown to be a child of the original program launch. An example:

Code:

UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
jas       1648  1638  0 10:15 ?        00:00:06 /usr/X11R6/bin/fluxbox
jas       2020  1648  0 10:48 ?        00:00:00   xterm
jas       2022  2020  0 10:48 pts/0    00:00:00     bash
jas       2066  2022  0 10:54 pts/0    00:00:00       /bin/sh ./firefox
jas       2078  2066  0 10:54 pts/0    00:00:00         /bin/sh ./run-mozilla.sh
jas       2083  2078  4 10:54 pts/0    00:00:10           ./firefox-bin
jas       2093  2083  0 10:54 pts/0    00:00:00             ./firefox-bin
jas       2094  2093  0 10:54 pts/0    00:00:00               ./firefox-bin
jas       2096  2093  0 10:54 pts/0    00:00:00               ./firefox-bin
jas       2097  2093  0 10:54 pts/0    00:00:00               ./firefox-bin
jas       2103  2093  0 10:57 pts/0    00:00:00               ./firefox-bin
jas       2051  1648  0 10:50 ?        00:00:00   xterm

Much easier to read and understand