Services at startup. Which one of these I really need?
 

Hello again!

My question today has to do with services that start at booting time.
This happens at my home -desktop- computer (Slackware 12.1).
Since I don't even know what most of them are, I will really appreciate if you could help me determine which ones to enable or disable and how to do it.

There are some other services that start at boot time (such as pcmcia) which I don't know if they are necessary or not. By disabling those unnecesary services, I think I will improve boot time and some memory usage too.

Thank you very much!

In my system, the startup services are (I opened Settings/KDE components to see them):

And the services -on-demand- which are running are (I am showing only those that are running):

The services you listed are KDE only. They are not system services. Scripts for system services are located in /etc/rc.d.

The former group is controlled in the KDE Control Center. The latter is controlled by toggling the executable bit of the associated script.

If you are uncomfortable with using the command line, you can control system services using pkgtool. From a command line, type and start pkgtool. Select the Setup option, then the Services option.

Which ones to run. The answer depends upon your needs. If you use pkgtool to examine the system services, you might notice some services are not listed. The services not listed are ones you don't want to disable. Some choices are obvious. For example, you'll want the CUPS service running for printer services. If you have a Windows box to connect to your Slackware box, then you'll need to run the Samba service.

You can disable most of the KDE services unless you discover a particular reason for running the service. You might want to keep KDED Media Manager and Media Notifier Daemon enabled. Those services control whether you are notified when inserting removable media such as USB flash drives and CDs/DVDs.

Services.
 

Thanks Woodsman for your help! Until now I've disabled some kde services an also pcmcia service at boot time. I am sure I can disable some others but I didn't want to take the risk until I am sure what I am doing.

Thanks again,
Glore2002.-

Do you mind if I ask what your goal is?

Hi,
The risk will cause what? By disabling services via the '/etc/rc.d' directory by changing the execution will not cause something that you couldn't reverse if indeed a problem would surface. Just make sure the fle that you chmod will not effect something else. rc.atalk is one that should be disabled if you don't use Apple/MACs on your network. As suggested you should use the pkgtool to setup services that you want or don't want. That way you are given the recommended services that should be touched.

If you don't have pcmcia in your system then that would be obvious. If you don't use M$ windows and don't wish to load samba then that's another.

You really have to set the scope of the way you wish to setup the boxen. Not a magic question to be answered mystically.

You could look at 'Slackware® Essentials' and 'Slackware® Basics' which are two good references.

'Linux Documentation Project' is another good source for reference.

A good admin guide to reference is 'Linux Newbie Admin Guide'.

These links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

There are some basic services that you must have like inetd if you want the Internet and cups if you want to print. You can disable sendmail if you're not running a mail server.

Thanks.
 

Thanks guys!
I will try to disable all the services I think I don't need.
My goal was not to run unnecesary things and also understand what all those running services were.

Thanks again,
Glore2002.-