I found the following problem with nice 2.0.11:
If you would be so kind as to report the 'nice --version' output to
the list it would be appreciated. I believe you will find that it is
not the GNU version.
with tcsh
If you are using tcsh then you are using the tcsh built-in version and
NOT the GNU version.
Marc:~/src/openoffice/oo_641c_src> nice -n -19 bootstrap
nice: Badly formed number.
I believe you will find that 'nice' is a built-in command to tcsh. I
believe you are NOT running the GNU nice program but are running the
tcsh shell built-in.
nice +19 bootstrap is ok;
nice -19 give me:
setpriority: Permission denied.
The tcsh man page says:
nice [+number] [command]
Sets the scheduling priority for the shell to num-
ber, or, without number, to 4. With command, runs
command at the appropriate priority. The greater
the number, the less cpu the process gets. The
super-user may specify negative priority by using
`nice -number ...'. Command is always executed in
a sub-shell, and the restrictions placed on com-
mands in simple if statements apply.
And therefore what you are seeing cooresponds to the tcsh built-in
nice command. What does 'nice --version' say? If it does not say GNU
then it is not.
No problem with bash.
Bash does not implement nice as a built-in. In the case of bash you
are probably running the actual GNU nice program. If you look at the
'nice --version' output you will see.
I hope it is not a "feature" of tcsh.
Sorry, it is a feature of tcsh. Perhaps you should switch? csh was
the ultimate paper terminal command shell. But I have not used a
paper terminal in 17 years. Just for fun, here is a famous treatise
on the subject.
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/language/versus/csh.html
Bob