About nice(1), renice(8) and ULE scheduler

[Jordi Espasa Clofent]

> In fact nice is a very simple program.  It only changes the
> priority value of a process in a POSIX-compliant way.
> There is no need to change or adapt it; it still works fine
> in the SMP world and with new schedulers.  It's up to the
> scheduler to interpret and handle the priority values of
> processes.
>
> In other words:  The nice(1) tool only attaches a number to
> a process, nothing more.  Only the scheduler knows what that
> number means.  So there's no need to change nice(1).

Great.  So, the key is the scheduler; it makes sense.

> By the way, the source code of nice(1) is almost trivial.
> Basically it just calls the setpriority(2) and execve(2)
> syscalls.  99% of the source file consists of the BSD
> license test, arguments parsing and C syntax overhead.

Thanks for aclaration. ;)

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over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner 
eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only 
I will remain.

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.