1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)nice.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 33.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/nice/nice.1,v 1.12.2.7 2002/12/29 16:35:40 schweikh Exp $ 34.\" 35.Dd June 6, 1993 36.Dt NICE 1 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm nice 40.Nd execute a utility at an altered scheduling priority 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Op Fl n Ar increment 44.Ar utility 45.Op Ar argument ... 46.Sh DESCRIPTION 47The 48.Nm 49utility runs 50.Ar utility 51at an altered scheduling priority, by incrementing its 52.Dq nice 53value by the specified 54.Ar increment , 55or a default value of 10. 56The lower the nice value of a process, the higher its scheduling priority. 57.Pp 58The superuser may specify a negative increment in order to run a utility 59with a higher scheduling priority. 60.Pp 61Some shells may provide a builtin 62.Nm 63command which is similar or identical to this utility. 64Consult the 65.Xr builtin 1 66manual page. 67.Sh EXAMPLES 68$ nice -n 5 date 69.Pp 70Execute utility 71.Sq date 72at priority 5 assuming the priority of the 73shell is 0. 74.Pp 75# nice -n 16 nice -n -35 date 76.Pp 77Execute utility 78.Sq date 79at priority -19 assuming the priority of the 80shell is 0 and you are the super-user. 81.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 82If 83.Ar utility 84is invoked, the exit status of 85.Nm 86is the exit status of 87.Ar utility . 88.Pp 89An exit status of 126 indicates 90.Ar utility 91was found, but could not be executed. 92An exit status of 127 indicates 93.Ar utility 94could not be found. 95.Sh SEE ALSO 96.Xr builtin 1 , 97.Xr csh 1 , 98.Xr idprio 1 , 99.Xr rtprio 1 , 100.Xr getpriority 2 , 101.Xr setpriority 2 , 102.Xr renice 8 103.Sh COMPATIBILITY 104The traditional 105.Fl Ns Ar increment 106option has been deprecated but is still supported. 107.Sh STANDARDS 108The 109.Nm 110utility conforms to 111.St -p1003.1-2001 . 112.Sh HISTORY 113A 114.Nm 115utility appeared in 116.At v4 . 117