I usually can't tell I'm compiling something when I use schedtool with his patches. The desktop feels as smooth and responsive as ever.
How much better is it? I lag slightly at times when compiling something like ghc.
Subjectively, much better. For example, when compiling something like the kernel or seamonkey, and browsing in seamonkey at the same time, I'd normally notice some lack of responsiveness. When using the ck patchset
and schedtool -D e with make, there's no subjective lag, no real indication that a build is going on. (Doing a speedtest, like Scragz' page load test, shows a slower page load time, but it's not something I'm subjectively aware of.)
I've also aliased tar to use the IDLEPRIO scheduling, and bz2 is much pleasanter now!
According to CK's
walkthrough.txt, using schedtool with a -ck kernel will cause the process to use only spare cpu cycles.
Easuter: glad it's working for you! VL is already fast and responsive, but the ck kernel does provide an extra tweak. The improvements aren't limited to providing a more pleasant compile experience, by any means!