Profile-sync-daemon is great for reducing the amount of repetitive writes to SSDs and in general speeding up the browser experience, but I personally think the time to remove it from Garuda Linux has come, and I’d like to hear some opinions.
Here’s why I think PSD should be removed:
PSD profiles can be multiple gigabytes in size. These do not only manifest on the disk (in the form of “snapshots” (read: backups)), but also are a permanent drain on RAM (upwards of 1 gigabyte per profile). Since Garuda Linux does not come with swap by default, this seems particularly problematic.
There have been many reports of data loss associated with profile sync daemon not successfully recovering from a crash event.
There have been recent reports of PSD filling up the entirety of the /run/user/[pid] directory for user accounts with multiple browser profiles.
Community sentiment from both experienced users and frustrated users (that likely make their first encounter with PSD when it fails) is favoring the negative side.
If something that is supposed to be beneficial turns out to cause failures elsewhere, especially data loss, it is best to exclude it until the anomalous behaviour is corrected. IMO.
I had noticed the profile-sync-daemon, but I hadn’t really looked into it yet. After my orgy of reinstalling the OS because of my snapshot problems, I saw what felt like 100 profile snapshots in the profile folders for the first time.
I use multiple profiles by default in all my browsers: Firefox, FireDragon, Zen Browser, Librewolf, and Ungoogled Chromium. The Zen and FireDragon profiles were broken. Since the snapshot problem was my top priority, I didn’t bother with it any further, created new profiles, and set them up according to my needs. I didn’t figure out why they broke but after reading this here I have a suspicion.
I’d like to add my vote to this. Even with Overlay enabled, it was causing so many issues to the point where I had to remove the browsers I use most often off the list so that they don’t get included. So yes, let’s make this a non-compulsory installation so those who don’t want it can remove it and for it to not come back on subsequent updates. Thank you!!
I don’t care one way or another, personally. But, I do wonder if this is a thing whose time has come and gone? At the time PSD was created, in 2011 (the Arch forum thread is still there), SSD reliability was poor, even the big brands, with big R&D budgets, were just beginning to start working out all the kinks, and most users were still running HDDs. Today, even trash-tier QLC DRAM-less drives are pretty decent, with typical desktop or notebook workloads.
Update notices:
Profile Sync Daemon (psd) was disabled automatically. The Garuda Linux developers do not recommend using psd. To continue using psd, mark
the pacman package as explicitly installed and enable the service manually: ‘sudo pacman -D --asexplicit profile-sync-daemon && systemctl
–global enable psd.service’.
I have to disagree with you there. I have a Samsung 830 Series 64GB produced in September 2011. I bought it in December 2011 and it was used daily in an old T400 Thinkpad until 2023 with a root partition of Arch Linux (/home excluded). Today, it runs Windows 10, which is installed in an external case for the rare occasion when certain things can´t be done without SpyOS. It runs and runs and runs and…
After my latest update I noticed the following in the terminal:
Profile Sync Daemon (psd) was disabled automatically. The Garuda Linux developers do not recommend using psd. To continue using psd, mark the pacman package as explicitly installed and enable the service manually: ‘sudo pacman -D --asexplicit profile-sync-daemon && systemctl --global enable psd.service’.
I wasn’t sure what it referred to so I looked it up here. Is there any chance a URL could be included with the terminal output which points to an explanation of what’s going on [such as this forum thread]?
Update: I’m noticing my old Lenovo laptop is a lot more snappy after this update
Sure, but that and the Intel 320 were pretty much the first two drives that definitely weren’t going to somehow self-destruct, or corrupt your data, and even then, only running them for a long time could prove that. It also had flash with much more endurance than drives from just a few years after it. However, on Windows, even it had some issues they had to fix with firmware, as it secretly looked at NTFS bitmaps, to free blocks, regardless of TRIM. Sandforce drives were everywhere, back then, and would slow down, corrupt, and require regular secure erasing. Many other drives would have custom firmwares, and it was crapshoot as to what would happen after you had one for 6+ months. Crucial’s C300 wasn’t that great, and the C400 only passable, but would slow down a good bit from use. They got things working pretty well with the M500, though its WA was pretty high (I used up about 75% of mine’s p/e cycles, before replacing the PC it was in), and that was common with drives that maintained decent performance at the time (I seem to recall Intel having a Maxell controller drive with similar wear issues). The earlier Samsung 470, even, was so-so, had long-term performance issues, and would just wear out after several years of normal use. Then, with newer lower endurance flash, Samsung’s 840 ended up having major performance issues as its flash wore, and the 840 Evos suffered some long-term read speed issues (probably didn’t scan old blocks for degradation and move them). Starting from the 850 series, it was all smooth sailing, from Samsung.
Why not setting up tmpreaper or tmpwatch to automatically and periodically delete unused data from /tmp folder after a certain period of time so it won’t fill up and cause issues ?
my experience
Current my “old” dr460nized version is laggy. The smoother feeling is history.
Even deleting cache folders, uninstall (over rdd option) + install the browsers (firedragon + firefox) no solution. The plasmashell is current 4x crashed when I opened a new tab in the browser or started octopi or a drawing program since this change. I had never these kind of issues since install date before (current 382 days ).
Even the switch from kde5 to kde6 and higher or changing hardware (from nvidia gpu to amd gpu) → no issues.
my opinion
If some users have 150 tabs open and knowing nothing about this, of course they run in trouble.
I ask also myself, why you changed self a running system if you can run in trouble like this
my current result →
I have reactivate this service to be sure that it was only that and not "my system is “faulty”.
Info to my mokka system → not changed this service → running smooth → no issues → works well (same metal only other drive)
Can you summarize this post? I’m not entirely sure what the idea I’m supposed to take from your post is. Are you saying your system is more laggy since the removal of PSD?
Yes..it is…laggy ..before → never. But we had a lot of updates kernel, driver. etc.
I test now some days my system with psd enabled. (today done in the morning and current no issues like this.
Read my post… it was 4 x that plasmaahell is crashed, often firefox or firedragon runs not smoothly if i open a new tab (need more time to open).
I start example gimp.. all fine ..open a picture… app crashed → plasmashell crashed → plasmashell restart itself.
Current with psd enabled → no probs or strange behavior.
My mokka run verry well without this intervention (psd enabled) and my “old” arco ..the same.. no issues but there is psd not enabled. ( i know arco is not garuda)
s
