How Does Linux Scheduling Work?

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. There is a fixed time interval during which each thread in the system must run at least once.

What is the scheduler in Linux?

A scheduler chooses the next task to be run, and maintains the order, which all the processes on the system should be run in, as well. In the same way as most operating systems out there, Linux implements preemptive multitasking. Meaning, the scheduler decides when one process ceases running and the other begins.

Does Linux scheduler threads or processes?

3 Answers. The Linux kernel scheduler is actually scheduling tasks, and these are either threads or (single-threaded) processes. A process is a non-empty finite set (sometimes a singleton) of threads sharing the same virtual address space (and other things like file descriptors, working directory, etc etc…).