Hi all,

I'm a long-time KDE user, but this is my first post on this board. I've been looking for information on disabling Nepomuk and Akonadi because I have been suffering from their run-away processes for several days now. Of course, I'm using Kubuntu's Beta systems for the 10.10 release, so yes, I expect problems.

However, having seen the comment: "it is FUD that Akonadi heavily uses resources.", I had to chime in. The whole reason I was looking to remove them is that my computer is being crushed under the load from them - and I don't seem to be using any applications that would require it.

Once I log into KDE, akonadi starts up at least 5 threads (akonadi_nepomuk, akonadi_*), each of which take up about 40% CPU, and who's memory consumption rises dramatically and quickly until my computer is doing nothing but swapping. If I wait 25 minutes (yes, I timed it last night), the processes eventually die (after killing off anything else that might be running), and I can get control of my desktop back. If I kill off all of the processes before they can thrash my computer, the desktop works, but I lose all of my widgets and settings.

I've tried disabling Nepomuk, Strigi, and anything else I can think of, but to no avail.

Is it possible I've done something, or is there a config file I need to purge?

I understand that Akonadi is here to stay, but it's entirely intolerable to have to wait 30 minutes after logging into my computer before I can open my email.

Any ideas or comments?

This is most definitely NOT expected behaviour from Akonadi.

Please move the following folders elsewhere, outside of KDE.

~/.config/akonadi/
~/.local/share/akonadi/

Also remove the following files:
~/.kde4/share/config/akonadi*

Make sure that File Indexing (Strigi) is disabled in System Settings also.

Finally, which version of KDE do you currently have installed? If you have 4.5, try adding an executable script in ~/.kde4/Autostart with the following:

Code: Select all

sleep 10s && qdbus org.kde.NepomukServer /servicemanager stopService nepomukfilewatch &

Thanks for the reply - and sorry for taking so long to get back to you.

I've tried doing this piecemeal, first deleting the ~/.local/share/akonadi directory, which didn't help. (I had tried removing this before without effect, after finding another bug reported elsewhere which made that suggestion.)

In a second pass, I removed the ~/.config/akonadi and ~/.kde/share/akonadi-firstrunrc directories. (I don't have a ~/.kde4 directory.) This second set of removals seems to have fixed the problem.

If it helps in figuring out what went wrong, I have had Strigi disabled since before the upgrade. Perhaps that's what caused Akonadi to become agitated?

With the success of the second set of deletions, I did not attempt the script to stop the Nepomuk server.

For completeness, the problem started under 4.4, but persisted after the upgrade to 4.5.

At any rate, *thank you very much* for the advice - My computer now boots up and does not launch those run-away processes.

If you still have some undesired akonadi processes running in the background after an upgrade, you should try this one:
Modify this file: ~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc

with

Code: Select all

[QMYSQL]
StartServer=false

WARNING - If you follow the above post, you need to add the appropriate configuration entries, and perform the needed setup, to allow Akonadi to access an already running MySQL server.

Otherwise it will not function at all, and *will* generate error messages on startup. In addition, access to Akonadi dependent applications may not be possible.

If you don't use programs using akonadi/mysql, this is perfect.
Your CPU will be available for you and your applications.

Disabling Nepomuk in Akonadi
http://blogs.kde.org/node/4457

I had the same issue. Due to the multiple errors with migration and even after fixing migration from the upgrade to KMail2, I removed the whole KDEPIM, and removed _all_ akonadi resources (except a default Files resource), I was still getting 30%+ cpu usage just by akonadi. The StartServer=false setting did the trick

It would really be lovely to have, in System Settings, some "profiles", and include a "Light" profile with no nepomuk or akonadi. This would open lots of possibilities, for mobile, and also light, chromeOS type of usage.

Cheers
Leo

samhain wrote:What functionality will I miss, if I disable Akonadi/Strigi/Nepomuk? As I understand, without Mysql Akonadi and the whole KPIM will be useless. What will I loose by removing Strigi and Nepomuk? What else will not work?

To completely disable Akonadi open konsole and type
nano ~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc

find StartServer=true
and change it to
StartServer=false

I have done this and I miss nothing.

bcooksley wrote:WARNING - If you follow the above post, you need to add the appropriate configuration entries, and perform the needed setup, to allow Akonadi to access an already running MySQL server.

Otherwise it will not function at all, and *will* generate error messages on startup. In addition, access to Akonadi dependent applications may not be possible.

This is the purpose to disable Akonadi. Some may say that Activities won't work properly as well as I think it was mentioned that Activities rely on Akonadi too but this is not a problem since Activities are one of the main criticized function in KDE4 and lots of people are asking how to get it rid of completely.

Activities uses Nepomuk, not Akonadi.

bcooksley wrote:Activities uses Nepomuk, not Akonadi.

That's not important. The main thing is how to get rid of. All of those so called cool functions akonadi, nepomuk and activities.

ivan wrote:I don't know how many times this needs to be said, but here it goes again:

Nepomuk =/= desktop search

Nepomuk does provide desktop search (via Strigi) amongst other things. Desktop search can be disabled.

As I said, it is required for things to work properly - and with every version of KDE SC, more things will need it.

Probably needs to be said at least one more time, or at least ONE time in which you actually provide an intelligible explanation. What exactly is =/= supposed to mean, and why is such a superfluous feature required for things to work "properly". Not sure if you've noticed but people aren't really huge fans of that type of mentality as is evidenced by reactions to that type of thing in the Windows world.

Speak for yourself! I like nepomuk (and I'm people to...).
I mostly use it for categories my documents. But I do also use the desktop search. In kde 4.10 RC strigi is out as I understand it. Now nepomuk really do the information collection (I think?). But I think the behavior is really nice in the new RC. Its almost instant to you can search after the document after you have created it. In earlier releases it could sometimes take to long before the spindler had found you new or edited document.
I think more people than you think is happy with technology as Nepomuk. But it is always the criers that is high voiced in support forums. The rest of us i happy with the direction.

But you can compile KDE completely without nepomuk and akonadi. I don't see the point really, but it at least exist some as do it, most of them are gentoo user. If you do stuff like that its probably less fiddel if you can use something as Gentoos use flags.