Temporarily stopping Zeitgeist

Question

Is there a way to temporarily stop Zeitgeist / the Zeitgeist daemon?

I've tried killing the daemon but it just restarts. I've tried stopping it, but it still seems to add entries to the Activity Journal...

Answer 1

This can be done using the Zeitgeist Activity Log Manager :

1. Add the Zeitgeist PPA:

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:zeitgeist/ppa
   

2. Install the latest version of Zeitgeist:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get upgrade
   

3. Restart zeitgeist-daemon:

   zeitgeist-daemon --replace
   

4. Install activity-log-manager

   sudo apt-get install activity-log-manager
   

5. Open up Activity Log Manager and click the Logging active button in the bottom right corner of the window to disable logging:

   

   Click it again to re-enable logging.

Answer 2

Remove the execute permissions of the zeitgeist* as follows. Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command below.

sudo -s

# on 32-bit systems:
chmod -x /usr/lib/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-fts

# on 64-bit systems:
chmod -x /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/zeitgeist-fts

# on both:
chmod -x /usr/bin/zeitgeist-daemon 
chmod -x /usr/bin/zeitgeist-datahub
exit

After doing so, the processes do not restart.

Answer 3

I've only been using Ubuntu exclusively on a couple of computers since Precise came out. I tasted Mandrake v.9 many years back, but have been Windows virtually all of the time. I grew up in the days of DOS and was around when Windows 286 emerged. (I've been tainted, but am not afraid of the command line.)

I tried uninstalling zeitgeist, tried stopping the logging with the manager listed above, but it kept re-loading itself anyway. Nothing worked.

I got rid of it (effectively) by just killing all the zeitgeist* processes and gave myself ownership of the files:

sudo chown [username] /usr/bin/zeitgeist*

Then I removed the Execute permission for each. I only had zeitgeist-daemon and zeitgeist-datahub.

A simple command such as

sudo chmod a-x /usr/bin/zeitgeist*

would probably have done it easier and quicker than the extra step of taking ownership, but I'm still working on my understanding of how 'Nix does its thing and wasn't sure if it could change itself if I wasn't the file's owner. Remember, I've been spooked by Windows.

So far... No harm, no foul.

Answer 4

I honestly forgot the correct way to do this, but try running

killall -9 zeitgeist-daemon in a terminal or in your run dialog.

Later to restart it, just run the daemon again. There is a correct way, and if I find it I'll post it.

Answer 5

If it's just about nauty things you don't want to show in your log, then there's a blacklist function. See http://saravananthirumuruganathan.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/tutorial-on-gnome-activity-journal-zeitgeist-and-sezen/

Edit: Outdated. See activity-log-manager

Answer 6

If you try to use an application that uses Zeitgeist, it will start Zeitgeist on Startup in case it is not already running. Example: Nautilus Elementary, Docky, Synapse or Activity Journal.

sudo apt-get remove zeitgeist-engine

is the only solution out there.

Answer 7

I'm having the same problem and, although there isn't clear why it happens, a workaround is to clear the zeitgeist-fts logs.

You could do that in the Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

zeitgeist-daemon --quit
rm -r ~/.local/share/zeitgeist/fts.index
zeitgeist-daemon --replace &

After that zeitgeist will back to work with a low memory usage.