How to set default nice level for an application

[Mark]

On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 10:54 PM, Basil Chupin <blchupin at iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
> OK, first time I am hearing about 'nice'.
>
> What's the advantage of running something like TB ( or anything else for
> that matter) with a different 'nice level'?
>
Nice is the kernel's way of prioritizing processes for scheduling.
The higher the nice number, the more the process is deemed to be
"nice" to other processes, thereby lowering their priority.  Most
normal processes run at nice level 0, and this is adjusted up or down
automatically by the kernel as it cycles through the scheduling.  The
more a process needs i/o, the less nice it gets, and the more CPU the
process uses, the nicer it gets.  Certain system processes run at
lower and lower niceness levels (higher and higher priority) depending
on their needs.

I'd bet there's a good write-up on this somewhere on the web, but
that's the basic idea.