Hi,
I installed slackware a month ago and since then I've learned a lot of stuff about linux in general. My Slack is working everything I asked it to do. Now I would like to speed it up by shutting down processes that I don't need(also securing the system). Could you give me some pointers on how to shutdown processes and how to know if I need some process?

TIA

Shutting down a process can be done several ways. As an example, an easy way to stop ssh that uses the startup scripts is:
To completely disable ssh:
As far as which ones you need goes - can you post the list of files in /etc/rc.d that have the executable bit set? They are the scripts that start your system services.

A number of services are also started from /etc/inetd.conf, you might want to look in there as well.

Thank yu for your replies but could you point me to a site where I can see some more info about those processes and their descriptions so know if I'm gonna use them.

Shilo's site has some good general info. There's nothing about specific applications but it's a starting point if nothing else.

I was actually thinking about posting something along these lines. Like what services to disable on startup (from a pretty much stock 10.2 install)? I know I can do without ssh but thats about it.

I'll check out that site SotD (and if its good, props to Shilo).

Hi,

Services that YOU (express the you) need will indeed depend on what you want to do with your system. You should do a little reading about how the process really works! If you are concerned about security that is another matter. But to shutdown a process that you feel will increase system speed is not good reason that will produce the results you expect.

Several good references in my sig. Do some google on what a process is and how it is handled. Even search on multitasking and you will get some interesting results.

As for the services that you can shutdown, any that you will not be using!

HTH!

This short How-To does not directly address your question, but does provide a recommended minimal list of which services to maintain:

Getting Started

That is, users can disable many services and still have a bootable box. The next question is which services can be disabled and yet provide a usable box. Answering that question is defined by each user.

When I first started tinkering with this stuff I maintained only the minimal number of services necessary. As I progressed in my journey and knowledge I slowly added additional services. However, do know that I was in no rush to install networking, internet access, printers, etc. I was content to progress slowly and deliberately. An inexpensive second-hand box is useful in this respect because one can learn while not impacting the primary production box.

I dislike the general approach among distro vendors to try to guess which services a user might need or, simply enabling all services. I would much rather see distros packaged with just about all services disabled. Users will quickly learn which services to enable when they try to perform various functions with their box. But that is only my opinion.

I couldn't agree more! This way I(as a newbie) have a lot of services running and most of them I don't know what they do. If I wanted something to with that service I would just go and start it, and on the way learn something about it.

if you run pkgtool as root, among other things, you can reconfigure statup services. the method above (chmod -x the scripts) is better when you know what your doing, but pkgtool is great to see what is actually booting and what isnt, and lets you change that and tons of other stuff from its menus.

Generally:

Green ones boot. Others don't

If you don't have color

Ones with "x"s boot. Others don't.

Now, you know what you're doing.