COMP 3000 Essay 1 2010 Question 5

Question

Compare and contrast the evolution of the default BSD/FreeBSD and Linux schedulers.

Answer

One of the most difficult problems that operating systems must handle is process management. In order to ensure that a system will run efficiently, processes must be maintained, prioritized, categorized and communicated with all without experiencing critical errors such as race conditions or process starvation. A critical component in the management of such issues is the operating system’s scheduler. The goal of a scheduler is to ensure that all processes of a computer system get access to the system resources they require as efficiently as possible while maintaining fairness for each process, limiting CPU wait times, and maximizing the throughput of the system. As computer hardware has increased in complexity, for example multiple core CPUs, schedulers of operating systems have similarly evolved to handle these additional challenges. In this article we will compare and contrast the evolution of two such schedulers; the default BSD/FreeBSD and Linux schedulers.