Xref: utzoo comp.windows.x:24050 comp.unix.questions:23569
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!dgcad!gary
From: gary@dgcad.SV.DG.COM (Gary Bridgewater)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Process priorities and X
Message-ID: <1879@proa.SV.DG.COM>
Date: 6 Jul 90 08:51:56 GMT
References: <9007031747.AA05025@stc06.CTD.ORNL.GOV> <1990Jul4.061431.12129@servalan.uucp> <1990Jul4.160042.562@smsc.sony.com>
Reply-To: gary@proa.SV.DG.COM ()
Followup-To: comp.windows.x
Organization: Data General SDD, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 27

In article <1990Jul4.160042.562@smsc.sony.com> dce@Sony.COM (David Elliott) writes:
}In article <1990Jul4.061431.12129@servalan.uucp> rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) writes:
}}... and I've noticed that clients that are started from twm (by some
}}twm menu action) are niced down by 4, and clients that are started by hand
}}run at normal niceness.  
}This makes sense.  All twm does is to system() the command to be
}executed, so it is subject to the same rules as any command executed
}by /bin/sh.
}In System V.2 and better versions of sh, the default is to automatically
}nice down (by 4) all processes started in the background.

(X11R3 uwm has the same property)

I just invoke the following set-root script from my initializer script.  If the
window manager is a nice -4 then sons exec'd with a nice 4 will have a net
niceness of 0.  Friendly system managers can set this up for users.  Substitute
the windowmanager of your choice or make it an argument.  Probably everyone can
make a better one than this but it works for me on my AViiON.
(Note: having a nice -4 window manager makes it quite snappy.)

//
#!/bin/sh
# raise window manager priority
exec renice -4 `ps -e | grep uwm | cut -c1-6` >> /dev/null 2>&1
-- 
Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corporation, Sunnyvale California
gary@sv.dg.com or {amdahl,aeras,amdcad}!dgcad!gary
C++ - it's the right thing to do.