[geeks] "Filemon" for Unix

[Matthew Braun]

I was wondering if there was some Unix-y equivalent to the Windows 
"filemon" tool 
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml). While there 
was an attempt to make a Linux-only version, it appears to be defunct 
due to lack of backwards compatibility in the kernel.

While 'lsof' is helpful, it isn't ideal as it's not continuous; it's 
endless mode actually does a run-wait-run where 'wait' is a variable 
amount of seconds (and I don't think '0' is a valid option).

I'm actually on an OS X box, but given the lack of valid options, I'm 
curious if there's such a tool for any Unix-based OS.

Filemon was great for figuring out why a program was bombing out when 
it was trying to read or write to a file that didn't exist or had the 
wrong permissions when the program wasn't very communicative ("An error 
has occurred" doesn't do much for me) and I'm confronted with a similar 
problem (something that once worked now does not after some directory 
fuckups).

--
Today, today, each day I have waited for you.
And now do they not say you are strewn with the shells of Ishi river?