When I call ps ax
, I get a list of running processes.
- Some of them I know by name (firefox, java, scala, you name it).
- Most of the others, I can find with
man NAME
, and try to find out, what they're doing. - If there is no man page for the program, I'm getting annoyed. But there is
apt-cache search NAME
, where I can find out from which package it comes, hoping to find an explanation. Example:apt-cache search wpa_supplicant
yieldswpagui - graphical user interface for wpa_supplicant
. - If apt-cache doesn't show anything, there is still the small hope, that
file $(locate NAME)
finds a script or something else with further informations. - However, for
rkit-daemon
I didn't find anything useful. - For
file $(locate gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor)
I only find a binary executable but no informations.
I might try to decipher gnome-virtual-file-sytem ...
and guess, it could be a tool to detect photo-SD cards and the like, if connected to the PC, but is there a better way to find out, what the processes, running on my PC, are doing? Do I really have to google?
Why isn't there some documentation about these processes or where do I find them? Is there an organized location to search them, or do I have to search them on a case-by-case-basis?
I guess I could download the source of the whole system, and search the source, but there is rarely additional information for users, but for developers.