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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)nice.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 29.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/nice/nice.1,v 1.12.2.7 2002/12/29 16:35:40 schweikh Exp $ 30.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/nice/nice.1,v 1.3 2006/02/17 19:39:09 swildner Exp $ 31.\" 32.Dd June 6, 1993 33.Dt NICE 1 34.Os 35.Sh NAME 36.Nm nice 37.Nd execute a utility at an altered scheduling priority 38.Sh SYNOPSIS 39.Nm 40.Op Fl n Ar increment 41.Ar utility 42.Op Ar argument ... 43.Sh DESCRIPTION 44The 45.Nm 46utility runs 47.Ar utility 48at an altered scheduling priority, by incrementing its 49.Dq nice 50value by the specified 51.Ar increment , 52or a default value of 10. 53The lower the nice value of a process, the higher its scheduling priority. 54.Pp 55The superuser may specify a negative increment in order to run a utility 56with a higher scheduling priority. 57.Pp 58Some shells may provide a builtin 59.Nm 60command which is similar or identical to this utility. 61Consult the 62.Xr builtin 1 63manual page. 64.Sh EXAMPLES 65$ nice -n 5 date 66.Pp 67Execute utility 68.Sq date 69at priority 5 assuming the priority of the 70shell is 0. 71.Pp 72# nice -n 16 nice -n -35 date 73.Pp 74Execute utility 75.Sq date 76at priority -19 assuming the priority of the 77shell is 0 and you are the super-user. 78.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 79If 80.Ar utility 81is invoked, the exit status of 82.Nm 83is the exit status of 84.Ar utility . 85.Pp 86An exit status of 126 indicates 87.Ar utility 88was found, but could not be executed. 89An exit status of 127 indicates 90.Ar utility 91could not be found. 92.Sh COMPATIBILITY 93The traditional 94.Fl Ns Ar increment 95option has been deprecated but is still supported. 96.Sh SEE ALSO 97.Xr builtin 1 , 98.Xr csh 1 , 99.Xr idprio 1 , 100.Xr rtprio 1 , 101.Xr getpriority 2 , 102.Xr setpriority 2 , 103.Xr renice 8 104.Sh STANDARDS 105The 106.Nm 107utility conforms to 108.St -p1003.1-2001 . 109.Sh HISTORY 110A 111.Nm 112utility appeared in 113.At v4 . 114