Re: Warning: Starting 10 extra processes takes > 2 sec.

[Ole Tange]

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Aaron Paetznick <address@hidden> wrote:
> I keep getting the following warning when using parallel:
>
> Warning: Starting 10 extra processes takes > 2 sec.
> Limiting to 1 jobs in parallel.
>
> This is on an NFS server that is busy compressing tar archives all day.  I
> appreciate that parallel is trying to protect me from myself, but I feel
> like I should be able to force the number of processes and/or bypass this
> warning if I need to.

I have given it some thought: The UNIX philosophy is that if you point
a gun at your foot and pull the trigger, UNIX will not ask you "Are
you sure?" or "Really?". Neither will UNIX refuse to do so. No, UNIX
will do its best to shoot your foot clean off.

So with that in mind the current behaviour is not wanted. I believe it
is OK to warn that this may cause problems, but GNU Parallel should go
ahead and do what it was told to do.

So the current git version of GNU Parallel will give you a warning
with advice of adjusting -j and pressing Ctrl-C to stop, but it will
continue instead of stopping. That should deal with your problem.


/Ole