If someone were to ask you...
 

"Which feature of Linux runs many programs at the same time and optimally uses the time and resources of the computer?"

What would you say?

Hi, and welcome to LQ!

Time would be the scheduler, "ressources" some other
part of the kernel.


Cheers,
Tink

I would say "please do not ask others to do your homework, you get more out of the lessons if you do it yourself. 2/10 See me after school."

Im not asking others to do my homework. If I did, Id be asking 19 other questions. The question doesnt make sense to me, Ive spent all day reading the chapter and googling about the linux kernel. I wanted to ask ppl who have a better understanding of the linux architecture than I do. Isnt that what forums are for?

Fair enough - you need to look up 'multi-tasking'. Google should be a good place to start and the Wikipedia probably has an article on it.

As long as you did try to figure it out yourself beforehand, hey, it's all good. You're just trying to clarify things.

Anyways, I believe the kernel timer and scheduler work together to run programs/figure out which one needs the CPU/RAM access next. At least that's what I remember from my CS classes on OS's.

This is my answer

Try again. (Incomplere answer.)

Re: If someone were to ask you...
 

This is a stupid question
why do i have to go to school when the teacher can't think of intelligent questions
what does this have to do with further indoctrinating me into the ideology of market capitalism

just a few sugestions

don't pay attention in school and you be better prepared for actual thinking later

The generic answer would be "time slicing" - the processor basically gets allocated for tiny increments (ticks) of time to do different tasks. This allows for multitasking. For more detail about queuing in Linux (on which I'm no expert) the following web page appears to have some nice information:

http://infamous.hackaholic.org/tq_tut.html

P.S. To prior poster: Oddly enough I never got a degree in IT yet have been a full time IT professional since 1991 after a few years doing computer work as an adjunct of my job as an accountant (also done without a degree). However the benefit to going to school is it keeps your resume from being weeded out for lack of degree in periods such as 2002 where there were far more IT workers than IT jobs available.