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Local system program analytics

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  Local system program analytics David Maulik <damauk@protonmail.com> - 2018-07-11 13:20 +0200
    Re: Local system program analytics Zenaan Harkness <zenaan@freedbms.net> - 2018-07-11 13:50 +0200
      Re: Local system program analytics <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2018-07-11 14:00 +0200
        Re: Local system program analytics tomas@tuxteam.de - 2018-07-12 10:20 +0200
    Re: Local system program analytics <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2018-07-11 13:50 +0200
    Re: Local system program analytics Mirko Parthey <mirko.parthey@web.de> - 2018-07-11 15:50 +0200
      Re: Local system program analytics <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2018-07-12 10:20 +0200
        Re: Local system program analytics Mirko Parthey <mirko.parthey@web.de> - 2018-07-12 13:20 +0200
        Re: Local system program analytics Cindy-Sue Causey <butterflybytes@gmail.com> - 2018-07-12 17:10 +0200

#197481 — Local system program analytics

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Is there any program that can show me the programs on my system I use the most? I'm looking for something that can help me trim unneeded/unused packages as well as show me which programs I use the most to help inform support/donation decisions.

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#197484

On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 07:18:55AM -0400, David Maulik wrote:
> Is there any program that can show me the programs on my system I use the most? I'm looking for something that can help me trim unneeded/unused packages as well as show me which programs I use the most to help inform support/donation decisions.

IDK, except there is a distro-wide popcon:
https://popcon.debian.org/

Good luck,

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#197487

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On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 09:41:39PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

[...]

> IDK, except there is a distro-wide popcon:
> https://popcon.debian.org/

Yeah, only that popcon gathers analytics on what packages people
install (to guide decisions on, for example, what should go in
the first "CD").

Cheers
- -- tomás
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#197534

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On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 08:52:54AM -0400, David Maulik wrote:
> On 7/11/2018 5:55 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 09:41:39PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >> IDK, except there is a distro-wide popcon:
> >> https://popcon.debian.org/
> >
> > Yeah, only that popcon gathers analytics on what packages people
> > install (to guide decisions on, for example, what should go in
> > the first "CD").
> >
> > Cheers
> > -- tomás
> 
> So I looked at the popcon README https://popcon.debian.org/README and much to my surprise popcon has the functionality to generate a rudimentary list of recently used programs.

[I assume you intended to CC the list -- there's much more
knowledge "out there" than would fit in my humble skull]

> For example,
> 	popularity-contest | grep '<OLD>'
> will show you a list of packages you haven't used in a while.  Note that
> this output isn't totally accurate: some packages appear "old" but you can't
> remove them because other (non-old) packages depend on them.  Shared library
> packages are particularly bad this way because it's impossible to tell when
> a library was last used.

See? I learnt something new: popcon gathers statistics on when something
was "used"... thanks for that insight.

> It looks like I still have a little bit of research to do to get the fine granular information I was looking for but I think I can start to work with this information. With the help suggestions by Tomas about SystemTap I will see if I can get what I am looking for, and maybe next time I will RTFM.

Yes. Definitely an interesting research topic. Obviously "usage"
or "relevance" in this context is at least a multi-dimensional
property.

I'd be interested in the conclusions you reach!

Cheers
- -- tomás
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#197486

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On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 07:18:55AM -0400, David Maulik wrote:
> Is there any program that can show me the programs on my system
> I use the most?
[...]

Define "use most".

OK, OK. This was a snotty answer, but there's something behind
it :-)

The system has a very different view of "using" than you have:
it can count how often a binary is invoked. It can measure
for how long a binary runs (init is started just once every
time you start your computer, but runs all the time while your
computer is up, to name one extreme example. Likewise a database
server or a web server. If you're a command line user, "ls"
will be a binary you are invoking lots of times during one session;
a shell, or Perl, or Python will be used innumerable times by
other programs. On the other extreme, there will be libraries
you might never have heard of (libc, libssl, watever) without
which many or most of your programs won't run).

To give a more specific answer -- if you are a heavy shell user,
your shell history might give you a hint; otherwise, you'll have
to ask the kernel. I don't think you'll find a ready-made solution,
but there are many kernel instrumentation approaches which might
be a building block in your quest's solution. To get a more
concrete idea, you might look into System Tap [1]; you would
select, e.g. the exec family of system calls (which start a
binary) and then run some statistics on them (note: not that
I'm proposing to *do* this -- rather to look into it to gain
insights which might help you to understand the problem space
you are trying to cover. As a collateral, and as so often, you
will learn a lot of other things :)

Cheers

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SystemTap
- -- tomás
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#197496

On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 07:18:55AM -0400, David Maulik wrote:
> Is there any program that can show me the programs on my system I use the most?
> I'm looking for something that can help me trim unneeded/unused packages as
> well as show me which programs I use the most to help inform support/donation
> decisions.

You could try BSD process accounting. The Debian kernels have it built in,
and the userspace tools such as "sa" can be found in the "acct" package.

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#197533

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On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 03:45:18PM +0200, Mirko Parthey wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 07:18:55AM -0400, David Maulik wrote:
> > Is there any program that can show me the programs on my system I use the most?
> > I'm looking for something that can help me trim unneeded/unused packages as
> > well as show me which programs I use the most to help inform support/donation
> > decisions.
> 
> You could try BSD process accounting. The Debian kernels have it built in,
> and the userspace tools such as "sa" can be found in the "acct" package.

So the programs which burn most CPU will get most sponsoring ;-)

Don't get me wrong -- I think your answer ist a good data point.
I just wanted to illustrate how difficult a "good" answer to the
OP's seemingly simple question is...

Cheers
- -- tomás
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#197543

On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 10:09:10AM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> So the programs which burn most CPU will get most sponsoring ;-)

Maybe wall-clock time spent is a suitable measure?
sa --sort-real-time | head

> I just wanted to illustrate how difficult a "good" answer to the
> OP's seemingly simple question is...

I agree.

Mirko

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#197554

On 7/12/18, tomas@tuxteam.de <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:
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>
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 03:45:18PM +0200, Mirko Parthey wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 07:18:55AM -0400, David Maulik wrote:
>> > Is there any program that can show me the programs on my system I use
>> > the most?
>> > I'm looking for something that can help me trim unneeded/unused packages
>> > as
>> > well as show me which programs I use the most to help inform
>> > support/donation
>> > decisions.
>>
>> You could try BSD process accounting. The Debian kernels have it built
>> in,
>> and the userspace tools such as "sa" can be found in the "acct" package.
>
> So the programs which burn most CPU will get most sponsoring ;-)
>
> Don't get me wrong -- I think your answer ist a good data point.
> I just wanted to illustrate how difficult a "good" answer to the
> OP's seemingly simple question is...


Agreed on a seemingly simple so is not when one takes into account all
that is going on under the hood.

For some reason, your response then made me think... a close second
might be something that monitors activity on...

/usr/bin; /usr/sbin; etc...

?

OR NOT. :)

That would take into account the various ways various users choose to
access packages throughout every day, e.g. via Applications menu and
terminal command line...

Also while playing with my own new 6 (?) button mouse, I encountered
wmbutton which turned out to be another way to open programs....

Cindy :)
-- 
Cindy-Sue Causey
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA

* runs with duct tape *

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