Computer Science › Section D · Operating systems › Topic D.4
Coordinating the machine: processes and scheduling
A laptop seems to play music, download files and respond to your typing all at once, even though it has far fewer processor cores than running programs. The operating system creates that effect by treating each running program as a process and switching the processor among them many times a second.
In this topic
- Programs and processes
- Process state and the process table
- The life of a process
- The scheduler and the dispatcher
- Why switching saves time
- Worked example: the price of a context switch
- Scheduling policies
- Worked example: FCFS against round robin
- Threads and multiple cores
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
This topic is part of Wuanberri Pro. Checking your access…