Executive v2.10

TITLE

   Executive

VERSION

   2.10

AUTHOR

   Petri Nordlund (petrin@megabaud.fi)
   (http://www.megabaud.fi/~petrin/)

DESCRIPTION

Executive brings real multitasking to AmigaOS.  Executive is a UNIX-like
process scheduler for Amiga.  It also has plenty of other features
previously available only in larger operating systems.

Executive improves the responsiveness of your Amiga.  One CPU intensive
application no longer causes the whole system to crawl.  You can start many
CPU intensive applications and the system still feels as if it would be
totally idle.

The Executive package also includes many useful client programs that let
you control tasks and monitor what is going on in your system.

The core of Executive is a scheduler that recalculates task priorities
based on system load average and task's recent CPU usage.  The scheduler
will give high priority to interactive tasks and low priority to CPU
intensive tasks.

Lets say you are printing a document from a word processor.  You can't do
much else while the document is being printed.  This isn't multitasking.
With Executive you could also do some heavy rendering and C-compiling in
the background at the same time.  You could surf the web with your favorite
browser without even noticing all these programs running in the background.

Executive consists of a server and clients.  The server is run in the
background and it takes care of scheduling, CPU usage calculations and many
other things.  Some important features of the server:

  - precise (1/1000 seconds) CPU usage timing
  - six different scheduling algorithms
  - load averages
  - process identifiers
  - process group identifiers
  - accounting
  - focus - task with active window gets more CPU time
  - MultiUser support

The client programs are:

  Acct            Accounting daemon
  ALoad           Display load average or CPU usage
  ALoad3D         Display load averages in 3D
  Commander       General task manager
  Ctp             Extended ChangeTaskPri
  Dashboard       The mother of all meters
  Kill            Extended Break
  Lastcomm        List last commands executed
  Meter           Display system information
  Nice            Run programs with lower scheduling priority
  Ps              Process status displayer
  Pstree          Display child-parent relationships
  Renice          Renice a task
  Sa              Display accounting statistics
  Stat            Display some misc. information
  Timer           Time shell and Workbench programs
  Top             Display information about top CPU tasks
  Uptime          Display system uptime and load averages

Executive is fully compatible with all Amiga computers running AmigaOS
release 2.04 or newer.

Executive is the highest rated item of shareware CU Amiga magazine has ever
awarded at 98%.  Executive V2.00 got 97% from the same magazine, and it was
ranked as "the best shareware utility ever."

NEW FEATURES

- This version fixes two very important bugs

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

AmigaOS 2.04 or newer is required to run Executive.

AVAILABILITY

Any Aminet site, for example:

ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/util/misc/Executive.lha

Executive has a WWW-page which has links to several Aminet
sites and also some nice screenshots. The URL of the page is:

http://www.megabaud.fi/~petrin/Executive.html

PRICE

The freely redistributable version doesn't lack any crucial features so it
can be used without registering.  Registered users get process accounting,
ALoad3D and Meter clients and 5 additional scheduling algorithms.
Registration fee is $15 and it's also accepted in many other currencies.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Copyright © 1995-97 Petri Nordlund, freely redistributable.

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