nice(1)

nice -- run a command at low priority

Synopsis

nice [-increment | -n increment] command [arguments]

Description

nice executes command with a lower CPU scheduling priority. The priocntl(1) command is a more general interface to scheduler functions.

The invoking process (generally the user's shell) must be in the time-sharing scheduling class. The command is executed in the time-sharing class.

If the -increment (or -n increment) argument (in the range 1-19) is given, it is used; if not, an increment of 10 is assumed.

The user with appropriate privileges may run commands with priority higher than normal by using a negative increment, for example, --10.

Return values

nice returns the exit status of command.

References

nice(2), nohup(1), priocntl(1)

Notices

An increment larger than 19 is equivalent to 19.