Reducing CPU scheduler latency in Linux

Abstract: CPU schedulers are an integral part of all operating systems used in modern systems, as they enable efficient task execution. In recent years the demand for interactive tasks such as video playback, streaming and gaming has increased rapidly. This combined with new ideas and design for CPU scheduling has led to the development of the BitMap Queue scheduler(BMQ) by Alfred Chen. Which aims to be efficient and scalable for interactive tasks, in hopes of becoming an alternative scheduler for Linux. This paper evaluates the performance of BMQ compared to the current default scheduler, the Completely Fair Scheduler(CFS). The methodology in the paper focuses on two key aspects latency and interactivity. The results display BMQ outperforming CFS in latency while maintaining similar performance in interactivity. However during heavier loads in the interactivity test BMQ outperformed CFS significantly. Thus the results suggest that BMQ provides reduced latency while providing at least similar and in some cases better interactive performance when compared to CFS.