giving a normal user rights to use negative nice values

[Jeff Vian]

On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 22:59 +0000, Chris Jones wrote:
> >          Surely this is not intended? I mean the system has priority
> > because it needs it?
> >     You could of course do it with sudo. The following in /etc/sudoers
> > murray   ALL = NOPASSWD:/bin/nice
> > allows me to do
> >
> > > sudo nice --adjustment=-10 ls
> >
> >   Does that do what you need?
> >         Bill
> 
> Maybe I should expand a little, as perhaps what I want can be solved in a 
> different way.
> 
> I'm running compiz. It works very well, but I have noticed that under heavy 
> load, such as whilst I am "making" something, the desktop gets rather 
> sluggish.
> 
> I have also noticed if I run make (or whatever else takes a lot of cpu) with 
> low priority (i.e. "nice -10 make") the system remains fully responsive.
> 
> So, I was thinking, instead of running everything else with a positive nice 
> value, which is difficult to arrange, why not run compiz with a negative 
> one ....
> 
> So thats my reasoning.... Maybe my idea is flawed ?
> 
> cheers Chris
> 
BTW Chris,
Anyone can 'renice' their own processes to a lower priority.  Only root
can 'renice' _any_ processes to a higher priority.

Anyone can use 'nice' to start a process at a lower than default
priority, but only root can start a process at a higher than default
priority. 

This is, and has been the policy for decades because of system
resources.  Can you imagine the (lack of) responsiveness of a system if
a multi-user system allowed everyone to use the highest possible
priority?