Nicelevel override

[koper89]

Hi,
I have a problem with configuration of rtorrent nicelevel

Terminal

start-stop-daemon --start --nicelevel 6 --background --pidfile $PID_FILE --exec /usr/bin/dtach -- -n $TMP rtorrent -n -o import=$CONF

This is my configuration and at the start it seems ok i checked it in top, but after some time it gets override by nicelevel 11 what can be a cause of this?

[IriDium]

I'm not too sure what this has to do with Xbian but...

I would guess that it is not unusual. You want to HOG the CPU with 6 and not EVER let a lower level in? Some processes have to run, no matter what their level. Without detailed debug information it will be difficult to determine the reason.

If you are using the RPi as a media player (Xbian) then it's best to let it do that and set rtorrent to a default nice value so as not to upset Xbian.

Have a read up on "nice" and understand how it works.

[min]

I'm having similar issues with nice levels changing- I have manually set up a few of the programs from the download packages and set the nice levels (as stated in the relevant thread). All of these nice levels are being changed at some point, as shown in top.

Iridium- from what I've read I understand that -20 is the highest in 'cpu-hogging' terms, and that a level of 6 is a therefore more suitable to a background process. Is this incorrect?

In the download package, nzbget & transmission are set nice 9, with python programs at nice 4.

[IriDium]

Nice -20 is the highest whereas 19 is the lowest.

Personally I wouldn't run anything above nice 5 as you then start to get into system areas - so 6 is the top limit.

You have to remember that the nice level is a value of a time slice - so once that "slice" is complete - another process will get a look in.

Why you would want a torrent to have a high priority is not something I understand.

[min]

Maybe Fred who is maintaining the package could shed some light on that point.

From my point of view those nice levels used to allow downloading etc to run in background while playing music or video- now they're being changed somehow and the playback is affected.

[IriDium]

@min - can you provide some screenshots of the changing of nice levels. The system will not change the level unless the upstart script has requested it.

Can you see if there is a .conf file in /etc/init.d of the program affected and post the contents.

This could be a conflict with upstart.

[mk01]

@min

I just briefly checked the packages but doesn't seem like it would be able to manage priority dynamic way. each package sets nice level on daemons start, that's true. but then looks rather static.

from XBian packages (as far as I know) only XBMC is changing priority dynamically (if you allows that).

[min]

I've just had a chance to check this issue again: it seems that when the init scripts are started at boot they're assigned a nice level of 9 or 14, but when started from terminal the nice level in the script is used (4 or 9 depending on script).