Process priorities

The decision of which process to run depends on the priority of the process. Every process is labelled with a priority value, giving it an immediate position in terms of when it will be given CPU time. Priorities are fundamentally classified into dynamic and static priorities on *nix systems. Dynamic priorities are basically applied to normal processes dynamically by the kernel, considering various factors such as the nice value of the process, its historic behavior (I/O bound or processor bound), lapsed execution, and waiting time. Static priorities are applied to real-time processes by the user and the kernel does not change their priorities dynamically. Processes with static priorities are thus given higher priority when scheduling.

Note

I/O bound process: When the execution of a process is heavily punctuated with I/O operations (waiting for a resource or an event), for instance a text editor, which almost alternates between running and waiting for a key press, such processes...