Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!nsc!chuqui From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: auto-niceing processes? Message-ID: <3086@nsc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 12:21:11 EDT Article-I.D.: nsc.3086 Posted: Tue Aug 6 12:21:11 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Aug-85 04:36:42 EDT Distribution: net Organization: The Dreamer Fithp Lines: 32 Has anyone out there done any work on setting up certain processes so that they automatically nice themselves? I know it can be done by adding hardcoded nice() calls to a program and recompiling, but that doesn't seem elegant to me -- it also doesn't allow you to deal with programs you don't have control of the source. I've looked at it, and I see two reasonable possibilities: o When something is put into the background, either by csh or sh, it is given a reduced priority. They would also need to be taught to return it to zero if it was brought back into the foreground which could get tricky. o Add a field to the a.out header that gives the program its nice value, with a default of zero. When the binary is exec()ed, it's niceness is set to whatever is in that field. A program would have to be written to modify that field in a binary as well, but it shouldn't be a lot of trouble (he says, blithely...) The problem we're running into is simply large amounts of development going on -- yesterday I found that we had 15 makes and a troff running simultaneously, and only two of the makes were niced. Even on a 780, this makes using emacs, vi, or even logging out relatively painful. What I want to do is give the foreground, terminal based processes priority without having to manually keep an eye on things... chuq -- :From the carousel of the autumn carnival: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA Your fifteen minutes are up. Please step aside!