Nice

nice

Specifically, process niceness - a very basic view is how "nice" a process is at handing over control to the CPU scheduler when asked to.

It's a similar situation as when your mam (the scheduler) tells you to give up the SNES (the process) because you (the CPU) need to do the homework (another process), the dishwasher (another process) and the bins (another process) - but the SNES is saying "just thirty more seconds bro, and the boss will be done".

edit: in context, these function keys manually force the niceness value up or down, determining whether the process allows you to finish the boss and give up the CPU at a more appropriate time, or whether the scheduler is like "nah absolutely not, homework, now".

edit edit: my assumption is that this is a process manager app anyway, else the rest of the above is bollocks