Subject: RE: bug#12530: nice(1) man page, bad wording

From: "Voelker, Bernhard" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:25:25 +0000

David Diggles wrote (Friday, September 28, 2012 4:45 AM)

> DESCRIPTION
>        Run  COMMAND  with an adjusted niceness, which affects process
> scheduling.  With no COMMAND, print the current niceness.  Nicenesses
> range from -20
>        (most favorable scheduling) to 19 (least favorable).
>
> Favorable to what?  It really does not explain, since it can be
> interpreted in opposite ways.  Please use words like higher and lower
> priority.

Hello to Brisbane!

Thanks for the report.

"Favorable" means the kernel will favor this process before
it will take "least favorable" processes into account for
scheduling.

I don't think the words "higher"/"lower" will bring clarity
to it, maybe it'd even be worse because a higher nice number
leads to lower priority.

What about a stronger term like "aggressive scheduling"?

Have a nice day,
Berny