[Nautilus-list] Re: Integration of gmc and nautilus desktop directories.

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman ireland sun com>]

jacob berkman wrote:
> 
> it actually seems to be doing a lot every 2 seconds (pid 458 is
> nautilus)

Aaaahhhh... this is really not great for server/Sun-ray deployment, we
will have servers that are running maybe hundreds of desktops.  But we
know that unless we are developers who are constantly building stuff,
our CPUs are idle most of the time...

Server-side environments like SunRay take advantage of this fact but
this doesn't work so well if everybody's "idle" desktop is constantly
pinging filesystems.  My gut tells me that this could degrade the
maximum number of desktops that could be served by a machine
appreciably.

Keep in mind that this is exactly one of the settings where
GNOME/linux has an advantage over the so-called "leading" consumer
desktop ;-), in libraries, schools, and businesses who "hot desk".

So it's not really "cost-free"...  one ping every now and then might
not be as bad (though it will still keep things from swapping out as
you'd like them to) but multiple I/O ops in an otherwise idle apps are
not so nice.

Best regards,

-Bill

> jacob wet-pants:libnautilus-extensions$ strace -tt -p 458 2>&1 | grep
> open
> 17:37:54.009476 open("/etc/mnttab", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file
> or directory)
> 17:37:54.009626 open("/proc/mounts", O_RDONLY) = 14
> 17:37:54.010356 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.011144 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.011929 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.012649 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.013339 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.014060 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.014836 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.015555 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.016356 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:54.016980 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.019698 open("/etc/mnttab", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file
> or directory)
> 17:37:56.019805 open("/proc/mounts", O_RDONLY) = 14
> 17:37:56.020502 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.021287 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.022071 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.022792 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.023482 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.024202 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.024976 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.025695 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.026496 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 17:37:56.027119 open("/etc/fstab", O_RDONLY) = 15
> 
> so the call to check the desktop dir probably won't make a difference.
> 
> jacob

-- 
--------------
Bill Haneman
Gnome Accessibility / Batik SVG Toolkit
Sun Microsystems Ireland