Editing Nice (Unix) (section)

==Etymology==
''Niceness value'' is a number attached to processes in *nix systems, that is used along with other data (such as the amount of [[input/output|I/O]] done by each process) by the kernel process scheduler to calculate a process' 'true priority'{{emdash}}which is used to decide how much CPU time is allocated to it.

The program's name, <em>nice</em>, is an allusion to its task of modifying a process' niceness value.

The term ''niceness'' itself originates from the idea that a process with a higher niceness value is ''nicer'' to other processes in the system and to users by virtue of demanding less CPU power{{emdash}}freeing up processing time and power for the more demanding programs, who would in this case be less ''nice'' to the system from a CPU usage perspective.<ref>Jerry Peek, Shelley Powers, Tim O'Reilly and Mike Loukides (2002). ''Unix Power Tools''. O'Reilly, p. 507.</ref>