Originally posted by barbarian:
Does anyone know what the following processes do exactly (I'm just curious):
Let's go through them then :-)
pmtool
Performance Monitor Tool. This is run by activity monitor to gather the statistics that it displays.
kernel_task
This is the kernel of the operating system. It controls much of your computer. You really want this :-)
ATSServer
Apple Type Services Server. This controls much of the fonts and things on your computer.
coreservicesd
Core Services Daemon. This controls a lot of useful stuff, like drag and drop, and a number of other services.
pbs
Pasteboard server. This is the clipboard.
distnoted
Distributed Notifications Daemon. This is used for sending notification messages between processes on your computer. Lots of programs use it behind the scene for various messages.
configd
Configuration Daemon. This stores a lot of the configuration of your Mac, funny that with a name like that.
mDNSresponder (owned by "nobody")
Multicast DNS Responder. This is the core of Rendezvous.
slpd
Service Location Protocol Daemon. This is the older style (used in Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X pre-Rendezvous) for Mac OS machines to locate other machines sharing files over TCP/IP.
rpc.lockd
This is the Remote Procedure Call Locking Daemon. It is used for locking files for NFS volumes.
Also is it normal for the WindowServer to take between 8%-12% of the cpu of a 1.8 G5?
If there's a lot of activity on the screen, the WindowServer needs to composite the screen fairly regularly and this can take a lot of CPU. On the whole, I wouldn't be worried about it unless it's actually slowing your machine down.
- proton
Top