3.2. Processor Scheduling
If you've ever opened the "System Monitor" application you will probably have noticed that there are a lot of "processes" running all the time. Some of these processes need the processor and some of them are just waiting around for something to happen. To help increase the number of processes that can run at the same time many modern CPUs have more than one "core," which allows for more processes to be evaluated at the same time. Even with these improvements there are usually more processes than available cores: my computer right now has 196 processes and only three cores. There has to be a way of decided which process gets to run and when and this task is left to the operating system.
In Linux systems like Fedora the core of the operating system (called the kernel) is responsible for deciding which process gets to execute at what time. This responsibility is called "scheduling." Scheduling access to the processor is called, processor scheduling. The kernel also manages scheduling for a number of other things like memory access, video hardware access, audio hardware access, hard drive access, and so on. The algorithm (procedure) used for each of these scheduling tasks is different for each and can be changed depending on the user's needs and the specific hardware being used. In a hard drive, for example, it makes sense to consider the physical location of data on a disk before deciding which process gets to read first. For a processor this is irrelevant but there are many other things to consider.
There are a number of scheduling algorithms that are available with the standard Linux kernel and for most uses a "fair queueing" system is appropriate. This helps to ensure that all processes get an equal amount of time with the processor and it's unacceptable for audio work. If you're recording a live concert and the "PackageKit" update manager starts you don't care if PackageKit gets a fair share of processing time - it's more important that the audio is recorded as accurately as possible. For that matter, if you're recording a live concert and your computer isn't fast enough to update the monitor, keyboard, and mouse position while providing uninterrupted, high-quality audio you want the audio instead of the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. After all, once you've missed even the smallest portion of audio it's gone for good!