nice configure

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jan 8, 2009, at 22:02, William Davis wrote:

> On Jan 8, 2009, at 10:54 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>
>> If you set "buildnicevalue" in ${prefix}/etc/macports/ 
>> macports.conf, MacPorts runs the build phase through the "nice"  
>> command so that "port" runs at a lower priority and doesn't steal  
>> cycles from other processor-intensive tasks you might have running.
>>
>> Would there be any advantage (or rather any disadvantage) to  
>> making the other phases, in particular the configure phase, nice  
>> as well?
>
> AFAIK the nice command has been broken for a very long time.  Just  
> bring up Activity Monitor and check it out.  You will fine the %CPU  
> used by "nice" processes is always zero (unless you are using a  
> really old OS).

The buildnicevalue definitely has the intended effect for me, during  
the build phase. When I use buildnicevalue, I can see this in my CPU  
meter in the menubar (MenuMeters), and I can feel an increase in  
system responsiveness. I am using Tiger.

So my question is whether it would help anything to also run the  
configure phase nicely, not just the build phase.


There are ports for which the buildnicevalue will not take effect --  
specifically ports that replace build.cmd with something that  
contains a space.