I am running an application which is very timing sensitive, and which has to be ran for quite a time just for precise [average] values to be determined.

But, as I am aware of, there are interfering processes here and there in the background, which jobs are to enrich the experience of the user -- such as update notifications (happens once a day), backup-management reminders (happens once in a while), and screen-locking automatisms (default is set to 10 minutes).

The question I am asking is, is there any practical way to "stop time," so as to speak, and make every such processes go to sleep? gnome-system-monitor reports CPU-usage fluctuations due to various factors. There is also Compiz for which the monitor seems to report background activities.

Would there be a viable way for any such interfering process to be terminated? Ubuntu is really the OS of choice, and one would be sad moving to another distro as a solution -- as the real solution is to be located within the Ubuntu realm -- especially because one is such a Linux layman. In short, any solution piece, however strange, is more than welcomed, and I hope more than one can benefit from such a thread.