From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1EU0UC-0007y8-5D for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:27:28 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with SMTP id j9OBOFM1014951; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:24:15 GMT Received: from biscayne-one-station.mit.edu (BISCAYNE-ONE-STATION.MIT.EDU [18.7.7.80]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id j9OBHMZ8023129 for ; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:17:23 GMT Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (OUTGOING-AUTH.MIT.EDU [18.7.22.103]) by biscayne-one-station.mit.edu (8.12.4/8.9.2) with ESMTP id j9OBHKqJ012826; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 07:17:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: from NETTEON.MIT.EDU (NETTEON.MIT.EDU [18.244.3.50]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as mlodutb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.13.1/8.12.4) with ESMTP id j9OBHJ7u012361 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5 bits=128 verify=NOT); Mon, 24 Oct 2005 07:17:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] [OT] PORTAGE_NICENESS is not so nice... From: Tomasz Mloduchowski To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: <200510240647.16996.dnebinger@joat.com> References: <200510240647.16996.dnebinger@joat.com> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-kCDCRfvsrLSsX9pfrJEF" Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 07:16:03 -0400 Message-Id: <1130152563.4938.39.camel@TSUNAMI.MIT.EDU> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.4.1 X-Spam-Score: 1.217 X-Spam-Level: * (1.217) X-Spam-Flag: NO X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.42 X-Archives-Salt: 4a3adbd9-70f2-46e0-846a-676ad4b917d1 X-Archives-Hash: 0d00886a5d5d49ce8b74452656909c8e --=-kCDCRfvsrLSsX9pfrJEF Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I *think* it should go to user mailing list, forums, or somewhere else where it's not [OT]. On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 06:47 -0400, Dave Nebinger wrote: > So I set PORTAGE_NICENESS to 19 in /etc/make.conf on my primary gentoo > desktop so I could do emerges in the background and still use my box... > [...] > So I'm starting to question how useful PORTAGE_NICENESS actually is... I= f > the system is pegged under niceness 19 and 0, but 0 completes in 10 minu= tes, > why would PORTAGE_NICENESS benefit me in any way? nice, renice, PORTAGE_NICENESS (they're all the same) affect the way kernel allocates CPU resources for running processes. Under normal operating conditions, nice'd processes will get less CPU time (with nice -n 19 ~1% of nice -n 0) than remaining nice 0 desktop processes. It is possible to run CPU intensive jobs with 98% of CPU time when other, competing processes are "nice". Basically, kernel will get the nice processes out of the way if something else wants the CPU (not completely, look around kerneltrap.org to see how exactly it works in different schedulers) What probably happened in your case was you run out of RAM. Than, your machine started to use VERY slow swap space to run applications from, and it may render some RAM-hogs (kde, e17, gnome) unresponsive. If you are running an memory limited box, you may consider getting rid of -pipe from CFLAGS, and setting MAKEOPTS=3D"-j1". No niceness would help if your system is waiting for swap space accesses. Or just buy more RAM. Modules are getting ridiculusly cheap compared to prices from last two years. I'd consider extra 128-256M for each thread, you use to emerge stuff from, sufficient. And with linux using memory very efficiently, more won't hurt either (and will likely decrease application startup times significantly). Tomasz --=-kCDCRfvsrLSsX9pfrJEF Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBDXMJz4G4ecAEwAR0RAicuAJ999bpk+D7TuygGmyrow6xBJRln2wCeL+2Y 9tImCZkiF9tl85fEE1r3x/s= =eXSf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-kCDCRfvsrLSsX9pfrJEF-- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list