Operating System Schedulers: How the Kernel Manages Tasks
Operating System Schedulers: How the Kernel Manages Tasks Behind every program you run, the kernel juggles many tasks. The OS scheduler decides which task runs on the CPU and for how long. It must balance speed, fairness, and energy use, while staying responsive to user input. The scheduler moves tasks through ready, running, waiting, and completed states, keeping the system busy without wasting time. Most modern kernels use a short-term scheduler that runs many times per second. Long- and medium-term schedulers decide what jobs enter the pool of ready tasks and how many stay in memory. The short-term scheduler chooses the next task to run and may preempt the current one if a higher-priority task arrives. ...