from small one page howto to huge articles all in one place
 

search text in:




Other .linuxhowtos.org sites: www.linuxhowtos.org
toolsntoys.linuxhowtos.org



Last additions:
How to make X listen on port 6000

How to make X listen on port 6000

words:

34

views:

81533

userrating:

average rating: 1.2 (52 votes) (1=very good 6=terrible)


May, 25th 2007:
April, 26th 2007:
Apr, 10th. 2007:
Druckversion . pdf icon
You are here: Tips&Tricks

nice and PORTAGE_NICENESS

Very simply put, the Linux kernel has a (process) scheduler that selects which process to run next in your system. One factor influencing the scheduler's decision about which process to assign CPU time to, is the priority of a process. Processes with a high priority will run before those with a lower priority, and processes with the same priority will take turns in running, one after the other and over again.

Better have a look at it for yourself: Run top from a terminal on your host and pay special attention to the PR and NI columns:

Sample top output

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND 
 8005 root      20   0 85188  33m  57m R  3.3  6.7   8:43.77 X 
 8148 tobias    20  10 25624 2376  24m S  0.3  0.5   0:00.60 xscreensaver 
    1 root      20   0  2476  552 2304 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.31 init 
    2 root      39  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0 
    3 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.09 events/0

The PR column indicates the priority level of a process, the value in the NI column displays the so-called nice value of process, which allows you to adjust the priority of a running process. Possible values range from -20 (very high priority), via 0 (standard priority) to 20 (very low priority). In our little example the xscreensaver process has a higher nice value than X, which indicates that X has a higher priority than xscreensaver.

Now, how do we make this work to our advantage when using Portage?

If you keep using your computer while compiling packages you will notice that your box is much less responsive as usal. This is caused by having two "groups" of processes with the same nice priority: your usual running tasks on one side, and emerge (and its child processes) on the other. Now, if you could renice emerge and its children to a higher nice (i.e. lower priority!) value (default is 0), compiling would inevitably take somewhat longer, but you could use your workstation without noticing much difference to its usual performance. That's what the PORTAGE_NICENESS parameter in /etc/make.conf is for:

Code Listing 1: Put this in /etc/make.conf

PORTAGE_NICENESS="15"

You can generally "renice" individual processes from the commandline, (e.g. renice 0 -p 8148 to prioritize xscreensaver in the above example), but this will not work with emerge, as Portage reads the PORTAGE_NICENESS setting from /etc/make.conf once and executes all child processes with the specified nice value.

From http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20041101-newsletter.xml


rate this article:
current rating: average rating: 1.4 (104 votes) (1=very good 6=terrible)
Your rating:
Very good (1) Good (2) ok (3) average (4) bad (5) terrible (6)

back



Support us on Content Nation

New Packages

- as rdf newsfeed
- as rss newsfeed
- as Atom newsfeed
2025-10-14
dash - 0.5.13.1
Ebuild name:

app-shells/dash-0.5.13.1

Description

Debian Almquist Shell

Added to portage

2025-10-14

fennel - 1.6.0
Ebuild name:

dev-lang/fennel-1.6.0

Description

Lisp-like language that compiles to Lua

Added to portage

2025-10-14

firefox - 144.0
Ebuild name:

www-client/firefox-144.0

Description

Firefox Web Browser

Added to portage

2025-10-14

gallery-dl - 1.30.10
Ebuild name:

net-misc/gallery-dl-1.30.10

Description

Download image galleries and collections from several image hosting sit

Added to portage

2025-10-14

kdenlive - 25.08.2-r1
Ebuild name:

kde-apps/kdenlive-25.08.2-r1

Description

Non-linear video editing suite by KDE

Added to portage

2025-10-14

newsboat - 2.41
Ebuild name:

net-news/newsboat-2.41

Description

An RSS/Atom feed reader for text terminals

Added to portage

2025-10-14

sanoid - 2.3.0-r1
Ebuild name:

sys-fs/sanoid-2.3.0-r1

Description

Policy-driven snapshot management and replication tools for OpenZFS.

Added to portage

2025-10-14

sanoid - 9999
Ebuild name:

sys-fs/sanoid-9999

Description

Policy-driven snapshot management and replication tools for OpenZFS.

Added to portage

2025-10-14

2025-10-13
XML-LibXML - 2.21.0-r1
Ebuild name:

dev-perl/XML-LibXML-2.21.0-r1

Description

Perl binding for libxml2

Added to portage

2025-10-13

cachetools - 6.2.1
Ebuild name:

dev-python/cachetools-6.2.1

Description

Extensible memoizing collections and decorators

Added to portage

2025-10-13

ceph - 20.1.1
Ebuild name:

sys-cluster/ceph-20.1.1

Description

Ceph distributed filesystem

Added to portage

2025-10-13

claude-code - 2.0.14
Ebuild name:

dev-util/claude-code-2.0.14

Description

Claude Code - an agentic coding tool by Anthropic

Added to portage

2025-10-13

crc32c - 2.7.1_p0
Ebuild name:

dev-python/crc32c-2.7.1_p0

Description

CRC32c algorithm in hardware and software

Added to portage

2025-10-13

dfu-programmer - 1.1.0
Ebuild name:

dev-embedded/dfu-programmer-1.1.0

Description

A Device Firmware Update based USB programmer for Atmel chips

Added to portage

2025-10-13

erb - 5.1.1
Ebuild name:

dev-ruby/erb-5.1.1

Description

An easy to use but powerful templating system for Ruby

Added to portage

2025-10-13

firefox-bin - 144.0
Ebuild name:

www-client/firefox-bin-144.0

Description

Firefox Web Browser

Added to portage

2025-10-13

freerdp - 3.17.2-r1
Ebuild name:

net-misc/freerdp-3.17.2-r1

Description

Free implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol

Added to portage

2025-10-13

gcc - 16.0.0_p20251012
Ebuild name:

sys-devel/gcc-16.0.0_p20251012

Description

The GNU Compiler Collection

Added to portage

2025-10-13

gentoo-sources - 6.12.52
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.12.52

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2025-10-13

gentoo-sources - 6.16.12
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.16.12

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2025-10-13

gentoo-sources - 6.17.2
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.17.2

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2025-10-13

gentoo-sources - 6.6.111
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.6.111

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2025-10-13

git-sources - 6.18_rc1
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/git-sources-6.18_rc1

Description

The very latest -git version of the Linux kernel

Added to portage

2025-10-13

gle - 4.3.8
Ebuild name:

sci-visualization/gle-4.3.8

Description

Graphics Layout Engine

Added to portage

2025-10-13

idna - 3.11
Ebuild name:

dev-python/idna-3.11

Description

Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)

Added to portage

2025-10-13

jc - 1.25.6
Ebuild name:

dev-python/jc-1.25.6

Description

Converts the output of popular command-line tools and file-types to JSON

Added to portage

2025-10-13

lsd - 1.2.0
Ebuild name:

sys-apps/lsd-1.2.0

Description

An ls command with a lot of pretty colors and some other stuff.

Added to portage

2025-10-13

marble - 25.08.2-r1
Ebuild name:

kde-apps/marble-25.08.2-r1

Description

Virtual Globe and World Atlas to learn more about Earth

Added to portage

2025-10-13

nuitka - 2.8.1
Ebuild name:

dev-python/nuitka-2.8.1

Description

Python to native compiler

Added to portage

2025-10-13

pam - 1.7.1-r2
Ebuild name:

sys-libs/pam-1.7.1-r2

Description

Linux-PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)

Added to portage

2025-10-13

pambase - 20251013
Ebuild name:

sys-auth/pambase-20251013

Description

PAM base configuration files

Added to portage

2025-10-13

pocl - 7.1
Ebuild name:

dev-libs/pocl-7.1

Description

Portable Computing Language (an implementation of OpenCL)

Added to portage

2025-10-13

pylint - 4.0.0
Ebuild name:

dev-python/pylint-4.0.0

Description

Python code static checker

Added to portage

2025-10-13

pytest-fixture-classes - 1.0.4
Ebuild name:

dev-python/pytest-fixture-classes-1.0.4

Description

Fixtures as classes

Added to portage

2025-10-13

reaper-bin - 7.48
Ebuild name:

media-sound/reaper-bin-7.48

Description

Digital audio workstation

Added to portage

2025-10-13

reazon - 0.4.1
Ebuild name:

app-emacs/reazon-0.4.1

Description

GNU Emacs implementation of miniKanren, logic programming language

Added to portage

2025-10-13

recog - 3.1.23
Ebuild name:

dev-ruby/recog-3.1.23

Description

Pattern recognition for hosts, services, and content

Added to portage

2025-10-13

sequel - 5.97.0
Ebuild name:

dev-ruby/sequel-5.97.0

Description

A lightweight database toolkit for Ruby

Added to portage

2025-10-13

setuptools-scm - 9.2.1
Ebuild name:

dev-python/setuptools-scm-9.2.1

Description

Manage versions by scm tags via setuptools

Added to portage

2025-10-13

shadow - 0
Ebuild name:

acct-group/shadow-0

Description

Added to portage

2025-10-13

shadow - 4.14.8-r1
Ebuild name:

sys-apps/shadow-4.14.8-r1

Description

Utilities to deal with user accounts

Added to portage

2025-10-13

systemd - 258.1
Ebuild name:

sys-apps/systemd-258.1

Description

System and service manager for Linux

Added to portage

2025-10-13

tlp - 1.8.0-r1
Ebuild name:

sys-power/tlp-1.8.0-r1

Description

Optimize laptop battery life

Added to portage

2025-10-13

tumbler - 4.20.1
Ebuild name:

xfce-base/tumbler-4.20.1

Description

A thumbnail service for Thunar

Added to portage

2025-10-13

uutf - 1.0.4
Ebuild name:

dev-ml/uutf-1.0.4

Description

Non-blocking streaming Unicode codec for OCaml

Added to portage

2025-10-13

vanilla-sources - 6.12.52
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/vanilla-sources-6.12.52

Description

Full sources for the Linux kernel

Added to portage

2025-10-13

vanilla-sources - 6.16.12
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/vanilla-sources-6.16.12

Description

Full sources for the Linux kernel

Added to portage

2025-10-13

vanilla-sources - 6.17.2
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/vanilla-sources-6.17.2

Description

Full sources for the Linux kernel

Added to portage

2025-10-13

vanilla-sources - 6.6.111
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/vanilla-sources-6.6.111

Description

Full sources for the Linux kernel

Added to portage

2025-10-13

rdf newsfeed | rss newsfeed | Atom newsfeed
- Powered by LeopardCMS - Running on Gentoo -
Copyright 2004-2020 Sascha Nitsch Unternehmensberatung GmbH
Valid XHTML1.1 : Valid CSS : buttonmaker
- Level Triple-A Conformance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 -
- Copyright and legal notices -
Time to create this page: 53.2 ms