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A process with two threads of execution, running on one processor Program vs. Process vs. Thread Scheduling, Preemption, Context Switching. In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, which is typically a part of the operating system. [1]
In computer operating systems, a light-weight process (LWP) is a means of achieving multitasking.In the traditional meaning of the term, as used in Unix System V and Solaris, a LWP runs in user space on top of a single kernel thread and shares its address space and system resources with other LWPs within the same process.
The operating system keeps its processes separate and allocates the resources they need, so that they are less likely to interfere with each other and cause system failures (e.g., deadlock or thrashing). The operating system may also provide mechanisms for inter-process communication to enable processes to interact in safe and predictable ways.
Multiple threads can interfere with each other when sharing hardware resources such as caches or translation lookaside buffers (TLBs). As a result, execution times of a single thread are not improved and can be degraded, even when only one thread is executing, due to lower frequencies or additional pipeline stages that are necessary to accommodate thread-switching hardware.
In computer science, The System Contention Scope [1] is one of two thread-scheduling schemes used in operating systems.This scheme is used by the kernel to decide which kernel-level thread to schedule onto a CPU, wherein all threads (as opposed to only user-level threads, as in the Process Contention Scope scheme) in the system compete for the CPU. [2]
It is an implementation of task parallelism based on the thread pool pattern. The fundamental idea is to move the management of the thread pool out of the hands of the developer, and closer to the operating system. The developer injects "work packages" into the pool oblivious of the pool's architecture.
A stalling instruction is one that temporarily halts execution of its thread. The processor pops a thread off the bottom of its deque and starts executing that thread. If its deque is empty, it starts work stealing, explained below. An instruction may cause a thread to die. The behavior in this case is the same as for an instruction that stalls.
For this reason, operating-system kernels often use spinlocks. However, spinlocks become wasteful if held for longer durations, as they may prevent other threads from running and require rescheduling. The longer a thread holds a lock, the greater the risk that the thread will be interrupted by the OS scheduler while holding the lock.