1. A symmetric multiprocessing system comprising: first and second central processing units; a first adaptive partition processing scheduler associated with the first central processing unit to selectively allocate the first central processing unit to run process threads of one or more adaptive partitions based on a comparison between merit function values of the one or more adaptive partitions, where the merit function for a particular partition, p, of the one or more adaptive partitions is based, at least in part, on whether the adaptive partition has available budget on the first central processing unit; and a second adaptive partition processing scheduler associated with the second central processing unit to selectively allocate the second central processing unit to run process threads of one or more adaptive partitions based on a comparison between merit function values of the one or more adaptive partitions, where the merit function for a particular partition, p, of the one or more adaptive partitions is based, at least in part, on whether the adaptive partition has available budget on the second central processing unit.