[ale] Sometimes, it's the little things...

[jdp at algoloma.com (JD)]

On 04/02/2012 06:02 PM, mike at trausch.us wrote:
> I have long known of the utility of the "nice" and "ionice" programs
> (and associated system calls).  But rarely have I actually found them
> useful, because of the way that I typically do things; I usually load my
> primary workstation with a job and let it run until it is finished.
> Sometimes, I offload some of the work to my server, and, rarely, I will
> do something that requires one of (a) the use of an insane number of
> CPUs or (b) the use of an insane number of my hours.
> 
> So often, I want my jobs to run as fast as bloody possible and to hell
> with everything else.
> 
> Well, today is a bit different.  Today, I have some new quarter-end
> processing jobs to do, and on a server that is a lone wolf.
> 
> Today, "nice" and "ionice" are my best friends.
> 
> I was able to do some otherwise intensive work with minimal disruption
> to the client's environment, and it worked out _really_ well.
> 
> That's pretty much it.  I just wanted to say that really, sometimes, it
> indeed is the little things that make life wonderful.
> 
I use nice and ionice a bunch. I also use TaskSpooler, ts, to limit the actively
running batch jobs with a queue as desired.  If you find lots of long-running
batch-like tasks, ts is a great help.