Script for setting priority - PID unknown ???

Question

Hi,
On this G4 Mac Classic runs unbearably slow under Mac OS 10.4.5. This is a problem many have (click here for link). Only my kids use Classic and they have their own managed account. Classic auto-launches when they log in.
What I want to do is have a script run for my kids' account. This script should run after Classic is started and set the priority to -20. I know the terminal command is this: "renice PID -20" The problem is that I do not know how to get the PID for "TrueBlueEnvironme" (the process name for Classic). I cannot seem to get "renice" to work with the process name.
So, my two questions:
1) What would the text of a script be which performs the "renice" command on a the process TrueBlueEnvironme when TrueBlueEnvironme has a different PID with each login?
2) How should I set up this script (auto-launch at login or tell it to pause?) so that it automatically runs after Classic launches?
Thanks much,
Mace

Answer 1

Hi Mace,
   Here's a function that waits five minutes until a single process is found that matches its argument. Thus, if you invoke the function, "psnice TrueBlue", it will renice TrueBlueEnvironment if a single PID is found within five minutes of the function being invoked. By the way, this function minimizes the priority of TrueBlueEnvironment as was suggested in the thread to which you linked. This is different from your question here, which was to maximize the priority of TrueBlueEnvironment.
function psnice
    INDEX=0
    until [ $INDEX -gt 100 ]; do
        PID=$( ps -axwwo pid,command | awk '/'$1'/{ if ( $0 !~ /grep|awk/ ){ print $1 }}' )
        PID_COUNT=$( echo $PID | wc -w )
        if [ $PID_COUNT -eq 1 ]; then
            renice 20 -p $PID
            break
        elif [ $PID_COUNT -gt 1 ]; then
            echo "Too many processes found."
        fi
        sleep 3
        let INDEX++
    done
}By the way, don't copy the above code using copy-and-paste because indention is produced with non-breaking spaces. Scripts won't like those. You would have to replace leading spaces with the "regular" kind.
Gary
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