Re: thread issue
On 8/4/2011 9:40 AM, lina wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 10:29 PM, Robert Baron
> <robertbartlettbaron@gmail.com> wrote:
>> have you tried adding an '&' to the tasks you think can be run in
>> parallel (as in running them in the background (ie 'mycmd myargs &'))?
>
> Thanks,
>
> "&" is cool.
> now is fully running, but, there is another thing slow it down, the
> nice level is 19. why is it so high? are there some root's setting?
Nice levels can be deceiving to those who don't understand how kernel
scheduling works. For example, it is possible, and happens all the time
really, that a program with a nice level of 19 will fully consume 100%
of a processor's time until the program completes.
The only time nice comes into play is when scheduling contention exists.
This only occurs when there are more ready-to-run processes/threads
than available processor time slice slots. On an 8 processor desktop
with the default 1000Hz scheduler you have 8,000 scheduling slices per
second. So unless your system has 8,001 ready to run processes every
second, that nice level 19 process will get all the CPU time it needs.
Nice is a relic of early UNIX when businesses and universities would
have dozens to hundreds of concurrent users on serial TTY terminals
running programs on a shared single processor machine. Nice allowed
administrators to provide "fair" access to all users, or to make sure a
critical batch job got the cycles it needed, even with many users
running their programs. On today's multi-core desktops, nice is
literally irrelevant. This is actually the case for most business
UNIX/Linux systems as well, as almost all of them have excess processor
capacity for their actual workloads.
--
Stan
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