> I have a process running on my Cooker machine that starts running as
> soon as I log into Gnome and continuously uses about 40% of the CPU even
> if I do nothing. The process is kapm-idled and it is process id 3. I
> can't find a binary anywhere on the system with this name. Can anyone
> tell me what this is and how I can kill it? It seems to have started
> since I upgraded to kernel 2.4.
It seems it is a powersaving feature of the kernel. Its active if
APM support is compiled in (i never do compile in APM support, so
its just a guess :-)).
This is an excerpt from /usr/src/linux/Documentation/Configure.help:
Enable APM at boot time
CONFIG_APM_DO_ENABLE
Enable APM features at boot time. From page 36 of the APM BIOS
specification: "When disabled, the APM BIOS does not automatically
power manage devices, enter the Standby State, enter the Suspend
State, or take power saving steps in response to CPU Idle calls."
This driver will make CPU Idle calls when Linux is idle (unless this
feature is turned off -- see "Do CPU IDLE calls", below). This
should always save battery power, but more complicated APM features
will be dependent on your BIOS implementation. You may need to turn
this option off if your computer hangs at boot time when using APM
support, or if it beeps continuously instead of suspending. Turn
this off if you have a NEC UltraLite Versa 33/C or a Toshiba
T400CDT. This is off by default since most machines do fine without
this feature.
Do CPU IDLE calls
CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE
Enable calls to APM CPU Idle/CPU Busy inside the kernel's idle loop.
On some machines, this can activate improved power savings, such as
a slowed CPU clock rate, when the machine is idle. These idle calls
are made after the idle loop has run for some length of time (e.g.,
333 mS). On some machines, this will cause a hang at boot time or
whenever the CPU becomes idle. (On machines with more than one CPU,
this option does nothing.)
--
Michael Neumann
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
