Ubuntu

How to re-ionice a file copy with Nautilus (GNOME v2.24.1)?

Asked by Uqbar on 2009-03-16

From time to time I need to make huge copies (4+ GB) with Nautilus (v.2.24.1) for ease of file selection.
I usually do this just before leaving the desk as it cant take long time and make the system unresponsive.
I'd like to re-ionice the process (if any) that makes the actual copy so I can go on editing my files with no problem.
How can I identify such a process (if any)?
Thanks.

Question information

Language:: English Edit question

Status:: Solved

For:: Ubuntu Edit question

Assignee:: No assignee Edit question

Solved by:: FD

Solved:: 2009-04-01

Last query:: 2009-04-01

Last reply:: 2009-03-30

Link existing bug

Revision history for this message

FD (fdouw) said on 2009-03-17:

I just ran a simple test (copy something and look at the CPU-usage); the process that takes care of the copying seems to be just “nautilus”. The obvious downside of renicing this process is that more than just the copying is send to the background…

Revision history for this message

Uqbar (uqbar) said on 2009-03-30:

In my case the CPU and the memory usage don't go higher than other processes during a heave copy.
It's a matter of I/O and this is why I want to use ionice (and not simply nice).

Revision history for this message

FD (fdouw) said on 2009-03-30:

I admit it the CPU usage was not excessive—I merely used it to find out which process does the copying. As far as I can see, this has to be just “nautilus”; this is the same process that is running all the time to show your desktop for instance. Anyway, if you want to re-ionice this, open up a terminal and enter “ps -e | grep nautilus” to find the process id (pid) of nautilus; then enter “sudo ionice -c3 -pPID”, with PID the id you just found, to move nautilus to the background.

Some useful sources:
http://linux.die.net/man/1/ionice
http://friedcpu.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/why-arent-you-using-ionice-yet/