[NTLUG:Discuss] What is this?

[Greg Edwards]

Wayne Dahl wrote:
> 
> Which brings me to another question.  The difference between find and
> locate is that find has to actually check the files on the disk and
> locate checks a database?  Is that what makes locate so much faster? 
> I've pretty much given up on find in favor of locate because of the
> speed difference. 
> 

> 
> I am familiar with recognizing the process id which is how I kill a
> running hung process.  But I do NOT know how to tell the difference
> between a parent and child process from the ps command.  I can't tell
> which is which.  Perhaps I'm running it without the correct options?  I
> usually run it as "ps -A".  Is there another option that would show the
> parent/child process ids?
> 

Wayne,

If your running X there are some GUI toys that you could look at.  Gnome 
(System monitor) and KDE (System guard) tools will let you show 
processes in a tree under their parents.  With a little playing around 
these tools can give you some nice feedback on your systems stability 
and performance.  For real admin work I use the command line.  But some 
of the GUI tools can help you see the picture in a different light.

locate and find serve different purposes.  You can get some of the same 
answers from both but they don't do the same job.  If your looking for 
an executable file which is faster than locate, find will give you the 
chance to refine your search, and locate will keep you from running 
across networked directories.  The wonderful thing about *nix OSes are 
all the tools, you just need to pick the right one for the job at hand.

-- 
Greg Edwards

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