nice (Unix)
Computer utility for Unix-like operating systems / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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nice
is a program found on Unix and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux. It directly maps to a kernel call of the same name. nice
is used to invoke a utility or shell script with a particular CPU priority, thus giving the process more or less CPU time than other processes. A niceness of -20 is the lowest niceness, or highest priority. The default niceness for processes is inherited from its parent process and is usually 0.
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Developer(s) | AT&T Bell Laboratories |
---|---|
Initial release | November 1973; 50 years ago (1973-11) |
Operating system | Unix and Unix-like |
Platform | Cross-platform |
Type | Command |
License | coreutils: GNU GPL v3 |
Systems have diverged on what priority is the lowest. Linux systems document a niceness of 19 as the lowest priority,[1] BSD systems document 20 as the lowest priority.[2] In both cases, the "lowest" priority is documented as running only when nothing else wants to.