NICE(1)

📦 version 0.12.0, in arch rolling

💅 nice(1) — the "chill pill" page 💅

okay so real talk, bestie: this is the nice(1) manual from the uutils coreutils fam, and it's literally the tool that tells your process to chill (or to stop chilling and go feral). the range goes from -20 (most favorable to the process — main character energy, gets the CPU first) all the way to 19 (least favorable to the process — sitting in the back of the bus, no cap).

✨ NAME ✨

nice — run COMMAND with an adjusted niceness, which affects process scheduling. with no COMMAND, print the current niceness. niceness values range from -20 (most favorable to the process) to 19 (least favorable to the process).

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

nice [OPTION] [COMMAND [ARG]...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the vibe 🫶: nice runs COMMAND with an adjusted niceness, and that niceness is what affects process scheduling — like, how much the scheduler faves your process versus everyone else's.

if you give it no COMMAND at all? it just prints the current niceness. that's it. a little vibe check on your own niceness level, iykyk.

and the niceness values? they range from -20 (most favorable to the process 👑) to 19 (least favorable to the process 😭). that's the whole spectrum, periodt.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -n, --adjustment — add N to the niceness (default is 10). yes, the default is literally 10, so if you don't say anything, your process is getting politely nudged back ten slots 💅
  • -h, --help — print help. slay, a little guidance ✨
  • -V, --version — print version. iconic, now you know what you're running 🌈
  • [COMMAND] — the command you want to run, obvi. if you skip it, you get the current niceness printed instead 🍓
lowkey important: niceness is about scheduling favor, so the lower the number, the more favorable to the process. -20 is the most favorable and 19 is the least favorable — don't get it twisted 🙈

👑 VERSION 👑

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

okay that's the whole page, bestie, you ate that 💖 and before you go — this gem is from the uutils coreutils crew, version v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-17. go be nice to your processes (or don't, I'm not your mom) 🧚‍♀️💜

📦 where this page comes from