⊿ Point. {R} Glossary. ◢ Keyword: P. ▰ Sources. 〓 Books [B] ◥ University. {q} PhD. ⏫ THEMES. ⏫ Big Data. [B] Big Data. ⚫ USA. ↂ EndNote. ☝️ BD Dummies. ☝️ [BS] Heigham. ☢️ Research. Process (computing) A list of processes being shown on htop. A computer program is a passive collection of instructions; a process is the actual execution of those instructions. Several processes may be associated with the same program; for example, opening up several instances of the same program often means more than one process is being executed. For security and reliability reasons most modern operating systems prevent direct communication between independent processes, providing strictly mediated and controlled inter-process communication functionality. In general, a computer system process consists of (or is said to 'own') the following resources: The operating system holds most of this information about active processes in data structures called process control blocks. Processes are often called "tasks" in embedded operating systems.
The above description applies to both processes managed by an operating system, and processes as defined by process calculi. Remzi H.