# FAM

The File Alteration Monitor (FAM) daemon is used by desktop environments such as GNOME and Xfce to monitor and report changes to the filesystem. FAM is also used by the Samba server daemon. Note that KDE no longer uses FAM, they have moved to the kernel-based inotify which requires no special configuration.

Warning: FAM is obsolete; use Gamin instead, if possible. Gamin is a re-implementation of the FAM specification. It is newer and more actively maintained, and also simpler to configure.

## Installation

FAM has been removed from the official repository as it is considered deprecated. You can install FAM from Arch User Repository (AUR).

## Configuration

A `fam.service` unit is provided, see systemd for details.

## See also

- FAM, Gamin, inotify

Category:

- File systems