[mythtv-users] Folding at home, having it start/stop between recordings/jobs??

[Johnny]

>
>> Note if you are iobound this is NOT your solution, however....
>
> Can you explain this?

Your CPU is actually only ever running one program at a time (with the
exception of hyper-threading). The way multitasking is done is the CPU
is interupted at regular intervals and it decides which program to run
during the next interval. Usually it does this switching frequently
enough that it is seemless to you. It appears that all of your apps
are running at the same time, when in reality they are each taking
turns at the CPU. When you renice a program you tell the CPU to give
that program lower priority and it won't get as much time on the CPU
as programs with higher priority.

If you are not CPU bound but are I/O bound then renice will happily
let your program have all the time it needs on the CPU and thus you
will still have I/O problem.