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.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/nice/nice.1,v 1.3 2006/02/17 19:39:09 swildner Exp $ 35.\" 36.Dd June 6, 1993 37.Dt NICE 1 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm nice 41.Nd execute a utility at an altered scheduling priority 42.Sh SYNOPSIS 43.Nm 44.Op Fl n Ar increment 45.Ar utility 46.Op Ar argument ... 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48The 49.Nm 50utility runs 51.Ar utility 52at an altered scheduling priority, by incrementing its 53.Dq nice 54value by the specified 55.Ar increment , 56or a default value of 10. 57The lower the nice value of a process, the higher its scheduling priority. 58.Pp 59The superuser may specify a negative increment in order to run a utility 60with a higher scheduling priority. 61.Pp 62Some shells may provide a builtin 63.Nm 64command which is similar or identical to this utility. 65Consult the 66.Xr builtin 1 67manual page. 68.Sh EXAMPLES 69$ nice -n 5 date 70.Pp 71Execute utility 72.Sq date 73at priority 5 assuming the priority of the 74shell is 0. 75.Pp 76# nice -n 16 nice -n -35 date 77.Pp 78Execute utility 79.Sq date 80at priority -19 assuming the priority of the 81shell is 0 and you are the super-user. 82.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 83If 84.Ar utility 85is invoked, the exit status of 86.Nm 87is the exit status of 88.Ar utility . 89.Pp 90An exit status of 126 indicates 91.Ar utility 92was found, but could not be executed. 93An exit status of 127 indicates 94.Ar utility 95could not be found. 96.Sh COMPATIBILITY 97The traditional 98.Fl Ns Ar increment 99option has been deprecated but is still supported. 100.Sh SEE ALSO 101.Xr builtin 1 , 102.Xr csh 1 , 103.Xr idprio 1 , 104.Xr rtprio 1 , 105.Xr getpriority 2 , 106.Xr setpriority 2 , 107.Xr renice 8 108.Sh STANDARDS 109The 110.Nm 111utility conforms to 112.St -p1003.1-2001 . 113.Sh HISTORY 114A 115.Nm 116utility appeared in 117.At v4 . 118