From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Steven Smith Subject: Re: process priority at 25 Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 17:23:30 +0100 Sender: linux-newbie-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <20020519162330.GA3150@cam.ac.uk> References: <20020519142943.GA9998@prester> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="cNdxnHkX5QqsyA0e" Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020519142943.GA9998@prester> List-Id: To: linux-newbie@vger.kernel.org --cNdxnHkX5QqsyA0e Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline > I alway thought process priorities range from -20 to 19 (also according to > "man nice"). But under kernel 2.5.16 I run top and process is display with > priority 25.. A process's nice value is not the same thing as its priority. niceness is used in the calculation of priority, but they're not bound together. In particular, a process's priority is liable to become numerically greater (-> lower priority) if it makes heavy use of the processor (this is supposed to stop something like ``while (1) ; '' bringing down the system), while a process which makes heavy use of the disk is likely to get slightly higher priority (because as soon as it hits the disk, it blocks, and something else can run). Under 2.4 kernels, priority is constrained between 0 and 20 (for non-realtime processes), but there's no reason why the same thing should apply to 2.5 kernels. Steven Smith, sos22@cam.ac.uk. --cNdxnHkX5QqsyA0e Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE859GCO4S8/gLNrjcRAsWfAKC2SeWWLnRqR6WukM8DJ933j8G3vQCgrzZs eJLSMCFoLzf8Py4rT0/yVVM= =HfZ5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --cNdxnHkX5QqsyA0e-- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs