This paper presents an implementation of a lottery scheduler, presented from design through debugging to performance testing. Desirable characteristics of a general purpose scheduler include low overhead, good overall system performance for a variety of process types, and fair scheduling behavior. Testing is performed, along with an analysis of the results measuring the lottery scheduler against these characteristics. Lottery scheduling is found to provide better than average control over the relative execution rates of processes. The results show that lottery scheduling functions as a good mechanism for sharing the CPU fairly between users that are competing for the resource. While the lottery scheduler proves to have several interesting properties, overall system performance suffers and does not compare favorably with the balanced performance afforded by the standard Linux kernel’s scheduler.
","abstract_html":"<p>This paper presents an implementation of a lottery scheduler, presented from design through debugging to performance testing. Desirable characteristics of a general purpose scheduler include low overhead, good overall system performance for a variety of process types, and fair scheduling behavior. Testing is performed, along with an analysis of the results measuring the lottery scheduler against these characteristics. Lottery scheduling is found to provide better than average control over the relative execution rates of processes. The results show that lottery scheduling functions as a good mechanism for sharing the CPU fairly between users that are competing for the resource. While the lottery scheduler proves to have several interesting properties, overall system performance suffers and does not compare favorably with the balanced performance afforded by the standard Linux kernel’s scheduler.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Zepp, David"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"MS in Computer Science","degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Michael L. Haungs"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-06-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2012-06-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:32:55Z","subjects":["lottery scheduling","schedulers","Linux","Other Computer Engineering"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["10.15368/theses.2012.89"],"render_values":[{"text":"10.15368/theses.2012.89","href":"https://doi.org/10.15368/theses.2012.89","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/772","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Michael L. Haungs"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Zepp, David"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2012-06-11T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["MS in Computer Science"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["lottery scheduling","schedulers","Linux","Other Computer Engineering"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/772","10.15368/theses.2012.89"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This paper presents an implementation of a lottery scheduler, presented from design through debugging to performance testing. Desirable characteristics of a general purpose scheduler include low overhead, good overall system performance for a variety of process types, and fair scheduling behavior. Testing is performed, along with an analysis of the results measuring the lottery scheduler against these characteristics. Lottery scheduling is found to provide better than average control over the relative execution rates of processes. The results show that lottery scheduling functions as a good mechanism for sharing the CPU fairly between users that are competing for the resource. While the lottery scheduler proves to have several interesting properties, overall system performance suffers and does not compare favorably with the balanced performance afforded by the standard Linux kernel’s scheduler.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Lottery Scheduling in the Linux Kernel: A Closer Look"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Michael L. Haungs"],"dc:creator":["Zepp, David"],"dc:date.available":["2012-06-11T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["This paper presents an implementation of a lottery scheduler, presented from design through debugging to performance testing. Desirable characteristics of a general purpose scheduler include low overhead, good overall system performance for a variety of process types, and fair scheduling behavior. Testing is performed, along with an analysis of the results measuring the lottery scheduler against these characteristics. Lottery scheduling is found to provide better than average control over the relative execution rates of processes. The results show that lottery scheduling functions as a good mechanism for sharing the CPU fairly between users that are competing for the resource. While the lottery scheduler proves to have several interesting properties, overall system performance suffers and does not compare favorably with the balanced performance afforded by the standard Linux kernel’s scheduler.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/772","10.15368/theses.2012.89"],"dc:subject":["lottery scheduling","schedulers","Linux","Other Computer Engineering"],"dc:title":["Lottery Scheduling in the Linux Kernel: A Closer Look"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Computer Science"],"thesis:degree_name":["MS in Computer Science"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:32:55Z"}