for years my family has been using virtual terminals so that each of us may be logged into the same machine and switch between our sessions using the ctrl+alt+f... key function. KDE added a menu entry awhile back that has the same functionality, but I've seen no preferences available in relation to this function. What I wonder is whether it is possible to increase the priority (reduce the nice value) of the user being switched to in relation to the inactive users on the other virtual terminals, or to reduce the priority (increase the nice value) of the user being switched away from. I know that technically only root is allowed to reduce the nice value of a process (giving it higher priority) but it sems that it would be convenient if the active users session had a higher priority than the inactive users. Sometimes I am compiling numerous programs, ripping a cd and have other background processes running. If I switch to my wife or daughters session they have to put up with a less responsive system than they might like. If this isn't possible then where should I go to suggest this feature? Thanks for your Ideas -- dh
On Sunday 15 January 2006 04:42, David Herman wrote: Hi,
I know that technically only root is allowed to reduce the nice value of a process (giving it higher priority) but it sems that it would be convenient if the active users session had a higher priority than the inactive users.
Sometimes I am compiling numerous programs, ripping a cd and have other background processes running. If I switch to my wife or daughters session they have to put up with a less responsive system than they might like.
I don´t know right now how to distinguish between active/inactive users and how to set their nice values appropiately, but you can assign nice level values on a per user basis at /etc/security/limits.conf So you could set a higher nice value to the user who often rips CDs etc. in order to allow a more responsive work for other users. Another, maybe better idea would be to use "sudo" so you can change the nice level as a normal user. By the way, this is not a KDE issue, maybe you should ask this again at the suse-security@suse.com list to get more answers on this. Regards Malte
On Monday 16 January 2006 12:51 pm, Malte Gell wrote:
On Sunday 15 January 2006 04:42, David Herman wrote:
Hi,
I know that technically only root is allowed to reduce the nice value of a process (giving it higher priority) but it sems that it would be convenient if the active users session had a higher priority than the inactive users.
---------snip----------
I don´t know right now how to distinguish between active/inactive users and how to set their nice values appropiately, but you can assign nice level values on a per user basis at /etc/security/limits.conf So you could set a higher nice value to the user who often rips CDs etc. in order to allow a more responsive work for other users.
Another, maybe better idea would be to use "sudo" so you can change the nice level as a normal user. By the way, this is not a KDE issue, maybe you should ask this again at the suse-security@suse.com list to get more answers on this.
I guess maybe I'll try to format a suggestion for implementation in kde4. It seems that if a user actually uses the kde "switch user" menu item (rather than the ctrl+alt+f... hotkey) then a mechanism could be implemented to raise the old users nice value at the same time. Of cource reducing it when switching back is where the problems will occur. I'll look into /etc/security/limits.conf as a possible work around for the time being. Thanks for the pointers. -- dh
participants (2)
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David Herman
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Malte Gell