> sounds to me that it is an OS problem on the server site. In many UNIX
> environments the scheduler will try to finish a job fast. If it then
> realizes that won't happen it "nices" it, making it less important,giving
> it less time slices. That continues gradually until the process gets
> barely any CPU time at all.
I disagree. The process scheduler on most systems does not change
the `nice' value of a process; that's only changed by a user. The
priority is changed, but this does not dramatically change the
amount of CPU a process gets, it simply gives the process longer
chunks of CPU time less often, in order to reduce the overhead of
context switching. In the case of somebody downloading information
over a slow modem link, however, it's more likely the process is
voluntarially giving up the CPU quite often when it does I/O,
anyway.
cjs
Curt Sampson curt@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/
Internet Portal Services, Inc.
Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.