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Processes

nice

Starts a command with adjusted scheduling priority.

nice sets the niceness value of a new process. Higher niceness means the process is more willing to yield CPU time.

Syntax
nice [-n adjustment] command [args...]

Arguments explained

  • -n sets niceness, commonly from -20 to 19.
  • command is the program to start.

Common examples

Run a CPU-heavy job politely
nice -n 10 tar -czf archive.tar.gz big-folder

Starts tar with lower CPU priority.

Start with default niceness increase
nice make

Runs make with a slightly lower priority than normal.

nice Command
FieldDetails
Commandnice
CategoryProcesses
Primary useStarts a command with adjusted scheduling priority.
Syntaxnice [-n adjustment] command [args...]

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renice

Changes priority of an already running process.

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Shows live process and resource usage.

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Reports current processes.