Mail Archives: cygwin/2005/05/31/19:21:54
* /From/: Mark Hadfield <m dot hadfield at niwa dot co dot nz>
* /To/: cygwin at cygwin dot com
* /Date/: Mon, 30 May 2005 12:07:28 +1200
* /Subject/: Re: slow windows foreground operation after installing
cygwin-1.5.17-1
* /References/: <42989AFB DOT 8030107 AT bellsouth DOT net
<http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2005-05/msg01325.html>>
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Mark Hadfield wrote:
Charles D. Russell wrote:
The new cygwin1.dll (1.5.17-1) now lets me run fortran programs with
large
static arrays that occupy most of the available memory, but it is no
longer
possible to run Windows programs (MSWord or even Windows Explorer)
in the foreground while a big math problem is chugging along in the
background. The foreground Windows process appears not to get enough
priority in the
time sharing allocation to function at a usable speed.
_____________________
The problem disappeared after a clean reinstallation using setup to
re-download everything. (My actual intent was to have a smaller set
of download files in order to back up the current cygwin
installation to CD, but it happened to fix the problem.)
This may be flogging a dead horse (since you say the problem has gone
away) but you didn't say what priority were you running the background
program at. Since you didn't say--and it's obviously relevant--I wonder
if you know about the facilities for setting program priorities. These
include the Cygwin "nice" command and the "Set Priority" item in Task
Manager (switch to process list and right-click on the process in question).
I do a lot of CPU-intensive, RAM-hungry numerical work in Windows 2000,
with a variety of applications, some Cygwin and some not, and I have
found that they *normally* interfere with foreground operation unless I
reduce the priority of the background task. Part of the problem is that
Windows GUI operations may to spin off low-priority tasks which then
take *forever* to execute. The DDE system seems to be particularly prone
to this. So I find myself adjusting priorities regularly.
___________________________
Thanks for the advice. I didn't know how to set priorities in Windows.
I have used "nice" with unix but had not looked for it in Cygwin.
(IIRC, there is also a more precise way to set priorities in unix.) What
struck me was the change in behavior on updating cygwin1.dll with no
change in the Windows configuration. Some slowdown was expected when
running a big background problem, but not enough to prohibit examining
directories with Windows Explorer, or doing simple text editing with MS
Word. Evidently I just had a corrupt installation.
I have been very happy with a four-year-old cygwin installation on a 64
Mb Windows 98 laptop running fortran programs that use nearly four times
the physical memory. (Having no problems, I never upgraded.) I am glad
to be able now, with the new cygwin1.dll, to make better use of the 512
Mb in my desktop.
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