Monitoring disk activity per process with iotop

[jonj1]

I'm a happy bubba2 user and bubba serves me well doing samba/NFS file sharing, subversion and a vncserver running window maker for when I need a GUI or to run a command remotely. Now my bubba2 is active most of the time, accessing the disk regularly even when I'm not using it for anything. I assume this activity prevents the disk from spinning down and saving power. Also the noise level is audible. I'd be interested to know what processes are accessing the disk so I can reduce unnecessary activity. The 'iostat' package is perfect for this. Unfortunately it's not in Debian Etch, but I got it installed from source quite 'easily'.

• download source from http://guichaz.free.fr/iotop/

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wget http://guichaz.free.fr/iotop/files/iotop-0.2.1.tar.gz

• install dependencies

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apt-get install python2.5 python2.5-minimal python-central python-setuptools

• install iotop

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tar xvfz iotop-0.2.1.tar.gz 
cd iotop-0.2.1
python2.5 setup.py  build
python2.5 setup.py  install

• Set the new python module path

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export PYTHONPATH=/usr/share/pycentral/python-setuptools/site-packages

• run iotop

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iotop 
Could not run iotop as some of the requirements are not met:
- Python >= 2.5 for AF_NETLINK support: Found
- Linux >= 2.6.20 with I/O accounting support: Not found

Googling the error shows it needs two kernel options compiled in:
CONFIG_TASKSTATS and CONFIG_TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING.

Could anyone at Excito confirm whether it is safe to use these kernel options/modules with bubba2 hardware?

regards,