Background Processes

All KDE background services are user-specific: unlike system daemons they are not shared between users. As well as being unique per user they are also unique per X-server display. The processes are:

dcopserver

Desktop communication

kded

Generic service daemon.

Triggers Sycoca database updates when needed

kcminit

Initialization service

See the section called “kcminit” for more information.

klauncher

Program launch (this is not the Alt+F2dialog!)

See the section called “klauncher” for more information.

knotify

User notifications.

See the section called “knotify” for more information.

ksmserver

Session management

See the section called “KSMServer” for more information.

kdeinit

kdeinit is used to start all other KDE programs. kdeinit can start normal binary program files as well as kdeinit loadable modules (KLMs). KLMs work just like binary program files but can be started more efficiently. KLMs live in $KDEDIR/lib/kde3

The drawback is that programs started this way appear as kdeinit in the output of top and ps. Use top -c or ps aux to see the actual program name:

%ps aux

waba     23184  0.2  2.1 23428 11124 ?	S    21:41   0:00 kdeinit4: Running...
waba     23189  0.2  2.4 25136 12496 ?	S    21:41   0:00 kdeinit4: klauncher
waba     23192  0.7  2.8 25596 14772 ?	S    21:41   0:00 kdeinit4: kded
waba     23203  0.8  3.4 31516 17892 ?	S    21:41   0:00 kdeinit4: knotify

kdeinit: Running... indicates the master kdeinit process. The other processes listed are programs started as KLMs.

When kdeinit starts for the first time it will launch klauncher, and kded, as well as any additional programs specified on its command line in the startkde script, normally kcminit_startup.

kcminit

kcminit executes initialization services during startup. Initialization services are specified in the .desktop files of applications or services via the X-KDE-Init line:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=kcmshell4 energy
Icon=energy_star
Type=Application
X-KDE-Library=energy
X-KDE-Init=energy

Initialization services are typically used for initializing hardware based on user-specified settings.

kcminit --list can be used to show all initialization services and kcminit service can be used to execute a single service explicitly. This can be useful when investigating startup problems.

klauncher

klauncher is a daemon which is responsible for service activation within KDE. It operates in close connection with the kdeinit master process to start new processes. KDE applications communicate with klauncher over DCOP in order to start new applications or services.

Best known from the error message: KLauncher could not be reached via DBus which either indicates a serious problem with the dcopserver or that klauncher crashed.

klauncher can be restarted by restarting kdeinit from a console window. Make sure that $HOME, $DISPLAY and the various $KDEDIR(S) are set correctly when doing so!

knotify

The primary task of knotify is to relay sound notifications to the sound server, it also provides alternative notification methods.