From 263672792f546ea88f0fe744bdbf75aec5280175 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Paul Eggert Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 20:50:51 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] (nice invocation): Document "niceness" versus "nice value" versus "scheduling priority". --- doc/coreutils.texi | 10 ++++++++++ 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+) diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi index 32b6977..17d6e28 100644 --- a/doc/coreutils.texi +++ b/doc/coreutils.texi @@ -12517,6 +12517,16 @@ enforce more restrictive limits. An attempt to set the niceness outside the supported range is treated as an attempt to use the minimum or maximum supported value. +A niceness should not be confused with a scheduling priority, which +lets applications determine the order in which threads are scheduled +to run. Unlike a priority, a niceness is merely advice to the +scheduler, which the scheduler is free to ignore. Also, as a point of +terminology, @acronym{POSIX} defines the behavior of @command{nice} in +terms of a @dfn{nice value}, which is the nonnegative difference +between a niceness and the minimum niceness. Though @command{nice} +conforms to @command{POSIX}, its documentation and diagnostics use the +term ``niceness'' for compatibility with historical practice. + @var{command} must not be a special built-in utility (@pxref{Special built-in utilities}). -- 2.7.4