[comp.emacs] Emacs process niced after awhile

ardis@wanginst.EDU (Mark A. Ardis) (06/25/87)

Problem: 

After running Gnuemacs for awhile, my process gets "nice"ed.  Response
is pretty bad once this happens.  The threshold seems to be around 12
minutes of CPU.  We are running Ultrix 1.2 on a VAX 785.

Questions:

1.  Is there a magic threshold, after which a process automatically
	gets "nice"ed?

2.  Is there a way to prevent this behavior for "special" processes?
	(I.e., can Ultrix be told not to "nice" certain programs?)

3.  Are there any alternatives to killing and restarting the process?

Thanks for any help you can give us.
-- 
Mark A. Ardis                           ardis%wanginst@CSNet-Relay (CSNet)
Wang Institute of Graduate Studies      ...!decvax!wanginst!ardis (UUCP)
72 Tyng Road, Tyngsboro, MA 01879-2099  (617) 649-9731

nate@cpocd2.UUCP (Nate Hess) (06/26/87)

In article <1257@wanginst.EDU> ardis@wanginst.EDU (Mark A. Ardis) writes:
>
>Problem: 
>
>After running Gnuemacs for awhile, my process gets "nice"ed.  Response
>is pretty bad once this happens.  The threshold seems to be around 12
>minutes of CPU.  We are running Ultrix 1.2 on a VAX 785.
>
>Questions:
>
>1.  Is there a magic threshold, after which a process automatically
>	gets "nice"ed?
>

Auto-nicing can occur anytime after a process has racked up 10 minutes
of CPU time.

>2.  Is there a way to prevent this behavior for "special" processes?
>	(I.e., can Ultrix be told not to "nice" certain programs?)
>

GNU Emacs can be compiled so as to run with a negative nice (-1, say).
Look at the bottom of "config.h".  This only works if the Emacs
executable is setuid root.

>3.  Are there any alternatives to killing and restarting the process?

One way of "cheating" the autonicing is to manually nice the emacs to
+1 before it acquires 10 minutes of CPU time.  Ultrix will see that the
process has a nice factor, and not autonice it to +4 like it usually
would.

Hope this helps,
--Nate
-- 
	   "How did you get your mind to tilt like your hat?"

...!{decwrl|hplabs!oliveb|pur-ee|qantel|amd}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!nate
<domainish> :   nate@cpocd2.intel.com		ATT :    (602) 961-2037

Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.att.com (06/26/87)

Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.47.3 of Sat Jun 20 1987 on cbstr1 (usg-unix-v)


Try nice'ing it 1 additional point when it starts up.  The performance
loss of one point is not noticeable by an ordinary user, and the fact
that it has been nice'd at all will keep the kernel from renice'ing it
later (by 4[?] points instead of 1).

Karl

ram%shukra@Sun.COM (Renu Raman, Sun {Graphics Sub-Division}) (06/26/87)

In article <757@cpocd2.UUCP> nate@cpocd2.UUCP (Nate Hess) writes:
>In article <1257@wanginst.EDU> ardis@wanginst.EDU (Mark A. Ardis) writes:
>>
>>Problem: 
>>
>>After running Gnuemacs for awhile, my process gets "nice"ed.  Response
>>is pretty bad once this happens.  The threshold seems to be around 12
>>minutes of CPU.  We are running Ultrix 1.2 on a VAX 785.
>>
>>Questions:
>>
>>1.  Is there a magic threshold, after which a process automatically
>>	gets "nice"ed?
>>
>
>Auto-nicing can occur anytime after a process has racked up 10 minutes
>of CPU time.
>
>
>...!{decwrl|hplabs!oliveb|pur-ee|qantel|amd}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!nate
><domainish> :   nate@cpocd2.intel.com		ATT :    (602) 961-2037

    In BSD it occurs at the end of the 10th minute i.e. with start 
of minute 11 you get niced to +4.  urogue players know this very will.

---------------------
	Renu Raman
	Sun Microsystems
	M/S 5-40, 2500 Garcia Avenue,
	Mt. View,  CA 94043

kanderso@VAX.BBN.COM (06/28/87)

Another way to eliminate nicing problems is to run emacs already
niced.  try

  nice 1 emacs

This runs slightly lower priority but it is not noticeable.  John
Robinson of BBN pointed this out to me when i was doing a lot of
scheme compilations inside emacs that sometimes ran all day.

k