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.\" 30.Dd February 24, 2011 31.Dt NICE 1 32.Os 33.Sh NAME 34.Nm nice 35.Nd execute a utility at an altered scheduling priority 36.Sh SYNOPSIS 37.Nm 38.Op Fl n Ar increment 39.Ar utility 40.Op Ar argument ... 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42The 43.Nm 44utility runs 45.Ar utility 46at an altered scheduling priority, by incrementing its 47.Dq nice 48value by the specified 49.Ar increment , 50or a default value of 10. 51The lower the nice value of a process, the higher its scheduling priority. 52.Pp 53The superuser may specify a negative increment in order to run a utility 54with a higher scheduling priority. 55.Pp 56Some shells may provide a builtin 57.Nm 58command which is similar or identical to this utility. 59Consult the 60.Xr builtin 1 61manual page. 62.Sh ENVIRONMENT 63The 64.Ev PATH 65environment variable is used to locate the requested 66.Ar utility 67if the name contains no 68.Ql / 69characters. 70.Sh EXIT STATUS 71If 72.Ar utility 73is invoked, the exit status of 74.Nm 75is the exit status of 76.Ar utility . 77.Pp 78An exit status of 126 indicates 79.Ar utility 80was found, but could not be executed. 81An exit status of 127 indicates 82.Ar utility 83could not be found. 84.Sh EXAMPLES 85Execute utility 86.Sq date 87at priority 5 assuming the priority of the 88shell is 0: 89.Pp 90.Dl "nice -n 5 date" 91.Pp 92Execute utility 93.Sq date 94at priority -19 assuming the priority of the 95shell is 0 and you are the super-user: 96.Pp 97.Dl "nice -n 16 nice -n -35 date" 98.Sh COMPATIBILITY 99The traditional 100.Fl Ns Ar increment 101option has been deprecated but is still supported. 102.Sh SEE ALSO 103.Xr builtin 1 , 104.Xr csh 1 , 105.Xr idprio 1 , 106.Xr rtprio 1 , 107.Xr getpriority 2 , 108.Xr setpriority 2 , 109.Xr renice 8 110.Sh STANDARDS 111The 112.Nm 113utility conforms to 114.St -p1003.1-2001 . 115.Sh HISTORY 116A 117.Nm 118utility appeared in 119.At v4 . 120