Idea #11206: Change "Nice" to "Priority" in System Manager

Written by Eldmannen the 16 Jul 08 at 20:38. Category: Others.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

In GNOME System Monitor, it has a column called "Nice".
* http://www.watchingthenet.com/wp-content/uploads/image/ubuntusysmonitor4.png

"Nice" comes from command 'nice';
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_(Unix)

However, the term "Nice" doesn't tell a user who don't know it, anything. The correct term to use would be "Priority" as that is what it indicates.

Tags: gnome-system-monitor

Attachments

Bug #249208 : Change "Nice" to "Priority" in System Monitor

Duplicates

[Report a duplicate and merge its votes to this idea]

Comments

Ubun2ideas wrote on the 16 Jul 08 at 21:14

What you are asking for is reasonable. The average person understands a process has a 'priority'. Most people don't know what 'nice' (in this case) means.

The only problem I have with your idea is that 'nice' is in fact the proper term in this instance. It is the accepted term used to describe process priority on unix-based systems. Not only that, but a higher nice value actually equates to a lower execution priority, so the terms cannot be used interchangeably since they are inversely-proportional to each other.

Also, the system monitor is more of an Admin tool. I don't see the need to candy-coat in this part of the system.

May I suggest an alternative solution? What about instead of your proposed name change, that when you click on the top left corner of a window (where it currently lists: Minimize, unMaximize, and so on) there could be some sort of slider bar to adjust the apps 'priority'. Would that work for you?
Write a comment to let me know what you think.

Eldmannen wrote on the 16 Jul 08 at 21:29

That, would actually be a nice idea. :)

Ubun2ideas wrote on the 16 Jul 08 at 22:37

Thanks. :-)

diegoj wrote on the 16 Jul 08 at 22:52

Great idea! +1

Double D wrote on the 16 Jul 08 at 23:30

+1

or at least a description on mouse over

tgape wrote on the 17 Jul 08 at 03:00

I prefer Ubun2ideas' version. If you're going to change the name of the field, change the semantics of the field to match.

bert.ubuntu wrote on the 17 Jul 08 at 05:10

Yes, like Ubun2ideas said it's an admin tool, no need to touch it. There are also unix history on it! The unix spirits could haunt ubuntu... I don't know :-)

dino wrote on the 17 Jul 08 at 15:12

-1 because the term "priority" is allready used on linux systems of ANOTHER attribute of processes (that cant be directly changed by the user)

also see ubun2idea's post.

btw, open a terminal and start "top" you'll see "PR" Priority and "NI" Nice - if you change "nice" to "priority" in gnome's sys. mon.. A user whould be confused if other programs (like top) refer to something else with the same word.

MighMoS wrote on the 18 Jul 08 at 23:44

-1 because Priority is already taken. A mouseover tooltip may be sufficient to explain it: "A higher nice value indicates less processing time", even though that example could use some work.

bruce89 wrote on the 21 Jul 08 at 01:06

The UNIX command called renice changes the nice value of a process. Changing the name from nice would confuse people who know what nice means.

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