How to permanently set higher process priority in GUI

[Tony Baechler - BATS]

On 7/19/2015 4:46 AM, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Sun, 2015-07-19 at 01:25 -0700, Tony Baechler - BATS wrote:
>> Is there a way within the GUI to permanently set a particular program
>> (in this case ffmpeg) to always run at the highest priority and access
>> all available memory?
>
> No.

Ah, that's what I thought.  Thanks for confirming this.

> > Decreasing the niceness of a process requires root access, so any GUI
> program that does it will need to be started as root or elevate its
> permissions when needed (i.e., prompt for a root password or run sudo
> and prompt for the user's password). The Ubuntu "Settings" program does
> this, for example, for "User Accounts".

Interesting.  I'll let him know about this.  It might help.


> Is the real problem here that you yourself do not know how to write
> these scripts? Then ask for help!


No, I have written lots of two line scripts, although I am still a relative 
beginner to bash.  I write wrapper scripts like this all the time on the 
server.  The problem is that I don't use X and I have no clue what's 
available on the desktop.  The other problem is his desktop is at the office 
and I am here.  As you guessed, he is behind a NAT, so ssh wouldn't work, 
besides I don't think he could figure out how to open a port on the router. 
  Finally, he has just switched from XP and doesn't know a lot more than me 
about the GUI.  By his own admission, he doesn't like the command line and 
doesn't want to learn.  About the best I got him to do so far is add an apt 
repository and install some packages from Terminal.  Trying to get him to 
install a script to /usr/local/bin is probably asking too much at this point.

Following up on an earlier comment you made, no, he shouldn't administrate 
his machine as root and doesn't as far as I know.  Someone installed Ubuntu 
for him but they left, so he's more or less on his own at the office.  Here 
at home, I can tell him what to do, but it's not so simple there.

Again, thanks for your help and your patience.  Fortunately, he likes VLC 
better and it seems to work for him, so for now, the problem is solved.