Processes in Linux

In Linux systems, processes are of great importance. Any application, program, or file that runs on a Linux system is termed as a process. Linux OS can have multiple processes running at the same time.

• Each process is given a unique process ID (or PID for short).
• Each process is allocated a separate block of memory (also known as address space) where they run.

States of a Process

At any given time, only one process can run. A process can be in one of the three states below.

• Ready State: When the processes are waiting for the currently running process to end and are ready to be run.
• Blocked State: These processes are waiting for some input or output and are waiting for a certain incident to happen before they can be run.
• Running State: The process is currently being executed.

As soon as the process is created, they immediately go into the ready state. They are stored in a special data structure and wait until the current process finishes executing.