Could I disable some of these gsd-xx processes running?

Desktop Environments Gnome
1

Looking at the output of ps_mem right after a fresh boot I see quite a few gsd-stuff running on my system:

sudo ps_mem | grep gsd 
672.0 KiB + 862.0 KiB =   1.5 MiB	gsd-screensaver-proxy
860.0 KiB +   1.1 MiB =   1.9 MiB	gsd-rfkill
976.0 KiB +   1.2 MiB =   2.2 MiB	gsd-usb-protection
  1.1 MiB +   1.7 MiB =   2.8 MiB	gsd-disk-utility-notify
  1.5 MiB +   2.3 MiB =   3.8 MiB	gsd-datetime
  1.6 MiB +   2.5 MiB =   4.1 MiB	gsd-print-notifications
  1.7 MiB +   2.8 MiB =   4.5 MiB	gsd-sharing
  2.7 MiB +   2.9 MiB =   5.6 MiB	gsd-a11y-settings
  3.0 MiB +   3.4 MiB =   6.5 MiB	gsd-housekeeping
  2.7 MiB +   4.4 MiB =   7.1 MiB	gsd-printer
  3.2 MiB +   3.9 MiB =   7.2 MiB	gsd-sound
  4.4 MiB +   5.1 MiB =   9.5 MiB	gsd-smartcard
  6.1 MiB +   8.4 MiB =  14.5 MiB	gsd-keyboard
  6.4 MiB +   9.0 MiB =  15.4 MiB	gsd-wacom
  7.4 MiB +  10.7 MiB =  18.1 MiB	gsd-color
  8.9 MiB +  11.7 MiB =  20.6 MiB	gsd-power
  9.1 MiB +  13.0 MiB =  22.1 MiB	gsd-media-keys

I haven’t dug any further into what these all are and what the do but I am most certain that I don’t use any Wacom device or a smart card for example:

pacman -Qo /usr/lib/gsd-wacom
/usr/lib/gsd-wacom is owned by gnome-settings-daemon 42.1-1

pacman -Qo /usr/lib/gsd-smartcard
/usr/lib/gsd-smartcard is owned by gnome-settings-daemon 42.1-1

So I wonder if some of these could be disabled/switched off?

I would appreciate any pointer, comments, suggestions for further reading etc.

2

One quick way to get rid of those processes would be to remove gnome and gnome-settings-daemon :wink:

2 Likes
3 
[joe@joe-plasma ~]$ sudo ps_mem | grep gsd 
396.0 KiB + 574.0 KiB = 970.0 KiB	xsettingsd

indeed

1 Like
4

Right! :wink:

Anyways, in the meantime, I went ahead and removed the x bit from /usr/lib/gsd-wacom and after reboot, as expected, it won’t start:

sudo ps_mem | grep gsd 
         
676.0 KiB + 866.0 KiB =   1.5 MiB	gsd-screensaver-proxy
728.0 KiB + 938.0 KiB =   1.6 MiB	gsd-a11y-settings
972.0 KiB +   1.2 MiB =   2.2 MiB	gsd-usb-protection
  1.0 MiB +   1.4 MiB =   2.5 MiB	gsd-housekeeping
  1.1 MiB +   1.7 MiB =   2.8 MiB	gsd-disk-utility-notify
  1.2 MiB +   1.9 MiB =   3.2 MiB	gsd-sound
  1.5 MiB +   2.2 MiB =   3.7 MiB	gsd-datetime
  1.6 MiB +   2.5 MiB =   4.1 MiB	gsd-print-notifications
  1.7 MiB +   2.7 MiB =   4.4 MiB	gsd-sharing
  2.5 MiB +   3.1 MiB =   5.6 MiB	gsd-smartcard
  2.8 MiB +   3.0 MiB =   5.9 MiB	gsd-rfkill
  2.7 MiB +   4.4 MiB =   7.0 MiB	gsd-printer
  6.1 MiB +   8.6 MiB =  14.7 MiB	gsd-keyboard
  6.9 MiB +   9.8 MiB =  16.7 MiB	gsd-power
  7.3 MiB +  10.6 MiB =  17.9 MiB	gsd-color
  9.1 MiB +  13.0 MiB =  22.1 MiB	gsd-media-keys

No adverse effect on the running of the system so far.
Shaving off 15.4 Mib of my RAM usage :sweat_smile:

5

I wonder if that will survive a package update.

Did you try this option from the man page?

these plugins can be individually disabled by changing the gsettings key org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.plugin-name.active, where plugin-name is the name of the plugin. To see a list of all plugins, use the command gsettings list-children org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins

1 Like
6

Most probably not.
I was just testing to see if it would adversely affect the system or not.

Thanks for this!

I’ll look into it and report back later this evening!

1 Like
7 
gsettings list-children org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins
color          org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.color
housekeeping   org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.housekeeping
media-keys     org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys
power          org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power
xsettings      org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings

Looks like only some of the gsd-daemons are listed those with a plugin (?).

This is not a matter of “life and death”. I was mostly curious about if those processes which have no correspondence to a device (wacom, smart card) could be disabled.

I will mark @dalto’s post as the solution. That is the pointer I needed to do this properly. I’ll dive into the man page to see if I find some more.

Thanks!

1 Like
8

I wonder if you added the keys if it would work.

9

Not sure if I am following you :blush:

10

I wonder if you added a key called org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.wacom.active if it would work.

1 Like
11

I see. I’ll try that.

1 Like
12

Would it be something like:

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.wacom.active false

?

13

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