Whats "xorg"?

[ENUsteve]

I noticed my cpu usage at around 10% per core even when I had everything closed. So I typed in "top" in the terminal and notice a process running under user "root" that says command "Xorg" thats running around 5-10% cpu ... I have no idea what this is. I'm new to linux, so am not familiar with all this. Is it normal for root to be running like that even though I never logged in as root? Anyone know what "Xorg" is?

[please_try_again]

X is the graphical server/client under Linux and Unix. The one used now is provided by the X.Org foundation (X.Org Wiki - Home). So Xorg is basically the same as X and X is a symlink to Xorg.

# readlink -f /usr/bin/X
/usr/bin/Xorg

When you boot Linux in runlevel 3 (by appending "3" to the options line at boot), you start Linux in console mode and X is not used at all... but it's not fun.
When X is running, it is normal that it uses some CPU and memory resources. When it eats 99%, you can start to worry.

[nrickert]

I noticed my cpu usage at around 10% per core even when I had everything closed.

If Xorg is running at 10% with no windows open, you are probably using desktop effects. If you turn those off, the cpu usage will go down.

On the other hand, if you like the desktop effects, then just leave them on. You didn't spend money on that cpu just to have it sitting idle all of the time. There's no harm in it using some cycles for doing what you want.

[ENUsteve]

lol thnx, guys. I recently installed something manually not from a repository (transmission remote), so I was a little paranoid. I appreciate the input. +repped