how to disable the famd deamon

[Andy]

>>also i could log off but never log on again.
>>I found out by killing the famd the system works again.
>>Is this famd neccesary?
>>I had this trouble minimum once per day.
> 
> 
> Hmm, actually famd should work fine and I think GNOME uses it to
> monitor the state of directories and files, 

Must say, famd has often caused me problems - and not just with Ubuntu. 
I sometimes find I can't unmount a samba share or eject a CD, and the 
cause is usually famd. Killing and restarting it usually solves the problem.

Any ideas how such problems can be reduced/eliminated?

Andy