Android Process Scheduling

Question

I am trying to get a better understanding so I can scope the reliability impact from potential interoperability issues when creating an android app/service. I would like to

Answer 1

Yes, it's possible for your process to be starved.

Android uses Linux 2.6 for its low level management of resources. Linux 2.6 happens to use multi-level feedback queues as its scheduling algorithm. This favours I/O bound processes and short CPU burst processes (ideal for phones for responsiveness/interaction). This does however mean that CPU intensive processes and low priority processes risk getting starved. I'm not sure if Linux 2.6 periodically increases the priority of waiting processes so they will eventually get served thereby avoiding starvation.

Realistically though, you shouldn't need to worry about this since you will either be the active activity or you will be a service, both of which have relatively high priorities as the previous answer shows.