How do you change the priority of a process in Linux?
You can change the scheduling priority of a running process to a value lower or higher than the base scheduling priority by using the
- Go to the Processes tab and click on the process you want to have a different priority.
- Right-click the process, and use the Change Priority menu to assign the process a higher or lower priority.
Nice command is used to run a process with an user defined priority whereas renice command is used to change the priority of a running process. Generally, nice and renice commands are used to change the priority than the default priority of a process.
In Linux, when you start any process or program, it gets the default priority of 0. You can use the ps or top command to display the priority of a running process. You should see the nice value of all processes in the NI column.
You can change priority of any process by right clicking the Nice column value and choosing Change Priority as shown in the following screenshot. What is this? Thats all, adjust the new priority value and click Change Priority. If you are looking for some details regarding System Monitor, you can find some here.
Priority value — The priority value is the process's actual priority which is used by the Linux kernel to schedule a task. In Linux system priorities are 0 to 139 in which 0 to 99 for real-time and 100 to 139 for users. Nice value — Nice values are user-space values that we can use to control the priority of a process.
You can display the global priority of a process by using the ps command. The global priority is listed under the PRI column.
Priority based scheduling in operating systems is the scheduling of processes based on their priority. This priority depends on factors such as time limit, memory requirements of the process and ratio of average I/O to average CPU burst time.
Establishing priorities is necessary in order to complete everything that needs to be done. Prioritization is important because it with allow you to give your attention to tasks that are important and urgent so that you can later focus on lower priority tasks.
A process' priority can range between 0 (lowest priority) and 127 (highest priority). User mode processes run at lower priorities (lower values) than system mode processes. A user mode process can have a priority of 0 to 65, whereas a system mode process has a priority of 66 to 95.
How do I change scheduling policy in Linux?
Change Scheduling Policy “SCHED_FIFO” with Priority
To change the scheduling policy of a process and set its priority level, execute the below-mentioned option with the chart command. For example, the current schedule of the program is “Sched_Batch” and we want to change it to “Sched_Fifo”.
Linux provides us a utility called ps for viewing information related with the processes on a system which stands as abbreviation for “Process Status”. ps command is used to list the currently running processes and their PIDs along with some other information depends on different options.

You can reduce a single process, all of a user's processes, or all processes owned by members of the same group. Once you reduce them, you cannot raise the priority of these processes. Only the system administrator can increase the priority of any process running on the system.
To list currently running processes, use the ps , top , htop , and atop Linux commands. You can also combine the ps command with the pgrep command to identify individual processes.
renice command is used to change the priority of a process that's already running.
- Right-click on taskbar and select Start Task Manager.
- Go to the Processes tab.
- Right-click on the process you want then select Set Priority then switch it to what you want.
Priority definition
Priority is defined as that something or someone is more urgent or important than other things. An example of priority is a claim that has to be processed right away and that jumps to the head of the line. Something to be given prior attention.
Therefore your first priority—priority one, job one, smallest number wins—is the first item on top of the stack.
- Minimum priority.
- Normal priority.
- Maximum priority.
Linux uses a Completely Fair Scheduling (CFS) algorithm, which is an implementation of weighted fair queueing (WFQ). Imagine a single CPU system to start with: CFS time-slices the CPU among running threads.
What is Linux default scheduling policy?
SCHED_OTHER or SCHED_NORMAL is the default scheduling policy for Linux threads. It has a dynamic priority that is changed by the system based on the characteristics of the thread. Another thing that effects the priority of SCHED_OTHER threads is their nice value.
Process Scheduler uses Scheduling Algorithms that helps in deciding the process to be executed. In LINUX, there are two types of processes namely - Real-time processes and Normal processes. O(n) scheduler divides the processor's time into a unit called epochs. Each task is allowed to use at max 1 epoch.
A process is the running instance of a program. Each process is assigned a process priority, which determines how much CPU or processor time is allocated to it for execution. There are two types of process priorities: the nice value and real-time priority.
Right-click on your selected process and navigate to Set priority. This drops down a sub-menu listing all the priority levels. Select the intended level (Below normal in our example).
- Right-click on taskbar and select Start Task Manager.
- Go to the Processes tab.
- Right-click on the process you want then select Set Priority then switch it to what you want.
You can reduce a single process, all of a user's processes, or all processes owned by members of the same group. Once you reduce them, you cannot raise the priority of these processes. Only the system administrator can increase the priority of any process running on the system.
Step 1: Make sure you're logged in Admin. Step 2: Start your program and open the Task Manager. Step 3: Check Show processes from all users to make sure processes are running as Admin. Step 4: Then right-click the program and click Set priority, then change the priority.
Simply, the "Real Time" priority class is higher than "High" priority class.
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Does changing priority improve performance?
Nope. Priorities don't affect processing speed, in that a higher priority process doesn't get to run faster or even to use more CPU time... not if it's the only thing that wants to use the CPU. To really talk about this we need to mention threads. Processes don't "run" in Windows.
Prio allows a user to save the priority specified by the user for any process. Once it is installed it will provide an option in the menu to save the priority of a process. Prio will save the applied changes, and every time a new instance of the process is executed; it will hold the priority as set by the user.
renice command is used to change the priority of a process that's already running.
Establishing priorities is necessary in order to complete everything that needs to be done. Prioritization is important because it with allow you to give your attention to tasks that are important and urgent so that you can later focus on lower priority tasks.