News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:What's a CPU to do when it has nothing to do? by na412 on Thursday October 11, 2018 @05:10AM (#18191962)
But then under what circumstances will the zero page thread ever be scheduled?
Re:What's a CPU to do when it has nothing to do? by masklinn on Thursday October 11, 2018 @09:53AM (#18193520)
It's confusing, but "idle" is a priority class as well as a state: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/procthread/...

The idle task (when there's nothing to run) doesn't have a priority at all, it just gets run when nothing else is available. the "idle" priority is an actual priority, for when there's no higher-priority task to run. The ZPT is prioritized below "idle", so super-duper-low priority.

Re:What's a CPU to do when it has nothing to do? by dTal on Friday October 12, 2018 @05:09AM (#18200214)
Thank you for this clear explanation. It is confusing!
Re:What's a CPU to do when it has nothing to do? by blattimwind on Thursday October 11, 2018 @07:07AM (#18192444)
When there are no runnable idle threads.