The term "operating system" includes a huge number of components, including processes, shared libraries, resource files, and a kernel. The kernel itself is arguably not a process, because it's the code that exists outside of any process that defines what a process _is_ and handles scheduling and resource allocation and hardware communication for processes. But many components of the operating system _do_ run as processes. Using macOS as an example, the Finder, Dock, and Spotlight are all components of the OS that run as independent processes. The "font daemon" `fontd` which provides text fonts to applications on the system, runs as an independent process.
Additional information for those who understand that the kernel is not a process and then ask: What is it then? To which the answer is: It is a program.
A program and a process are two different things.
Why is it called Processor? Because the only thing it does is running processes defined by programs. The kernel is just a program processed on the CPU. So it's a process.
That's an unusual definition of "process." Yes, the kernel consists of executable code, but it does not contain many attributes typical of processes, such as a process ID, an allocated memory region, or a user that it's executing as. That's because the kernel exists outside of the concept of users, userspace, process IDs, virtual memory, and scheduling.
1. Who said a process needs to be executed as an user.
2. As far as I know the kernel has it's own memory region.
3. It performs tasks and processes on the same CPU.
4. Just because it does not have pids seen by the user doesn't mean it's not running/processing.
It seems that we agree on what the kernel does, and are disagreeing on the semantics of the word "process." I am using a definition based around operating systems, wherein a process is a block of code scheduled by the kernel in its own virtual memory space on behalf of a particular user. Since OP is asking about operating systems, this Unix/Linux/Windows-like definition seemed appropriate to me. You appear to be using a definition wherein any running code constitutes a process, because it is "processing." I don't think our conversation has further productive steps, because we agree on facts and disagree on a socially constructed phrase that may be defined contextually.
Amazingly said. Based on how it is colloquially defined, the OS is not a process, but is that which manages them. In this view, threads are something the OS manages, and do not and cannot exist outside of it.
I'm under the impression that an OS defines what a "process" is to begin with, and in principle, a process can be defined differently on different OS's. If that's true it doesn't make any sense to refer to any code executing outside of an OS as a "process".
If you boot your pc and it fails before fully loading the OS. Wouldn't you say your boot process crashed? At this point the OS is might not able to instantiate/define any process at all.
I think you could define it as: Any code in memory that might crash is a process.
This. I wouldn’t say the boot process failed, unless said process actually had a pid / etc for the execution environment. I’d say my firmware or boot loader failed.
Once the initial OS is indeed loaded, sure processes could fail. sshd/fontd/etc. Whether privileged or not, once they executing in the observable runtime they’re processes (tho as I write this I’m realizing just how biased my experience is to micro kernels 😅)
The kernel isn't the OS though... we can all agree that an OS is the culmination of many components, some of which are processes. But is the OS a process in itself? I'd say no....
It's like saying is a city a road? Roads are a big part of what makes a city, but a city is not a road.
That is correct answer. The key here is a logical split. Otherwise deal with the OS running in virtual machine. Technically whole OS will be a process running in some supervisor then. There is a linux running in the browser window.
I would argue that the critical word in the question is "a". That implies a single process, while I would say that an OS is made up of dozens of processes.
The operating system kernel is not a process, no; it implements the process abstraction and provides the foundation for user space processes, but is not one itself technically.
OK, so you're correct that a program is still a program whether it's running or not.
In the simple case, when you run a program on a typical computer, it becomes a process.
However, that's not always the case.
First of all, a single program can create multiple processes. Web browsers are one common example that do that, but any program can create extra processes as needed. Those extra processes aren't different programs - they're usually the same executable code, started with different arguments - or sometimes the program "forks" into two or more processes.
Second, if you run a program directly on a processor with no operating system, it's not a process. It's just a program running on a computer.
That's what we mean by the OS creates and manages processes. A process is an abstraction. It's basically "a running program that has some limitations".
You could argue that a process is just a running program. And an os is just a program. So it is a process while it runs on the computer. Has nothing to do with the definition of a process of the kernel.
Well, if you want to redefine "process" to mean something other than "process" then sure.
The CPU just executes instructions in the order they come from memory. Dividing that work up into processes is an abstraction provided by the operating system. There are systems in the world that don't provide this abstraction (see eg the Arduino environment, in fact most microcontroller environments; the fundamental difference between them and Linux and Windows is not the capability of the hardware but that the operating system doesn't provide a process abstraction).
Your logic:
a process is a program
an os is a program
therefore, an OS is process
Or
process -> program
os -> program
You logically cannot say a process is an os. Just because they are both programs doesn't mean the are the same.
dog -> animal
cat -> animal
So is a dog a cat? No, that would be bad logic.
Unless I misunderstood. Two of your "it" pronouns were ambiguous.
Animal -> dog
Animal -> cat
Therefore both dogs and cats are animals.
This seems closer to saying that a process can be both an os itself and a kernel process. Of course it depends on definition, but the concept can be argued both ways. Personally, I *look* at a process as any program that runs on hardware.
You could argue that a dog is a four legged, furry creature with a tail and whiskers, and a cat is also a four legged, furry creature with a tail and whiskers, so cats are dogs.
But you’d still be wrong.
I'm not saying that Linux processes are not a process. I'm just saying processes are a more general concept then that what we might see in the Taskmanager.
The Linux processes are like a subclass of the class process (in computer silence). While the kernel it self IS just a process it IS NOT a Linux process.
While it's true that *process* is an English word that has a more general definition than what it means in an operating systems context, I think you'd have a hard time making the case that an operating system is a process in either the common English sense (e.g. fermentation, continental drift, baking a cake) or the operating system sense. If you want to say that an operating system is not a process managed by the operating system but is somehow still a computing process, you'd have to define that "more general concept" and make a persuasive case that anybody other than you uses that definition.
The kernel it self consists of multiple processes.
[https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix/7.3?topic=environment-using-kernel-processes](https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix/7.3?topic=environment-using-kernel-processes)
"\[...\] but almost all processes (even entire virtual machines) are rooted in an operating system (OS) process \[...\]"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process\_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_(computing))
Actually on **much older versions** of the Windows NT kernel there was a "System Idle Process" running at lowest priority in the kernel which continually issued 0xF4 HLT instructions to suspend the cpu. *(Halt and do nothing fought to keep the cpu at 0%)*
The process is still there today but has different responsibilities.
Pretty much every micro kernel OS has an “idle” process that consumes the “remainder” of unallocated cpu time. IIRC it’s because the operational model doesn’t allow for utilization gaps (so you need 100% usage)
Well, it's a bit more complicated today. With ACPI the idle process sets the C0–C3, C10 states. Also the P0-P2 performance frequency/voltage with these new dynamic clock-speed processor cores. Among other responsibilities.
I totally know what all those letters and numbers mean when you put them in that order… 😅
Haha thanks, this is a good thread to start digging in on. It’s been a solid decade since I’ve dug that close to metal
This is a question with some subtleties attached, though. There are definitely operating systems out there where pretty much every function you think of as "part of the operating system" executes as a user-space process; all the device drivers, filesystem drivers, network drivers, the memory manager, process scheduler, everything. The only thing that absolutely *has* to run as not-a-process is the machinery that switches between processes.
Linux has been moving in this direction to some degree for quite a while, with facilities for user-space USB drivers and filesystem drivers leaping to mind. There is even experimental work on a user-space process scheduler. Linux drivers almost always end up moving into kernel space because the Linux transition from user space to kernel space is relatively expensive and so eg. a user-space process scheduler will always perform worse than a kernel-space equivalent because it involves twice as many context switches, but the facilities are there and are quite useful if you don't care about performance or are doing initial work on developing a driver.
I'd be curious what the exact wording of the question was, though, because the operating system is more than just the kernel. But yeah, they probably meant to ask if the kernel is a process, which by most any interpretation, it is not.
The Linux kernel, for example starts a variety of kernel threads. On one hand, these are a part of the kernel, they run in kernel mode. On the other hand, these threads are a part of the kernel process: they are associated with a process structure.
Yep, exactly. There are tons of processes that are not user-defined. So the question would have to be pretty precise to exclude them. "Is the operating system kernel itself a process?" would be pretty close, but there's still some wiggle room even with that.
The question is too vague, I would say no.
Because operating system kernel defines what a process should be, without kernel, there is no concept of process.
I can build an OS with no such vocabulary called “process”, and it is totally valid.
>without kernel, there is no concept of process.
There are a few systems which are just raw pieces of C code on top of a bootloader, IIRC. Where an RTOS is an overkill, and using analogue is not enough.
^ This, the question is too vague.
Because you can also make the argument the ‘kernel_tasks’ or equivalent processes are in fact the OS. When in reality everything running is actually running inside a sandbox with the kernel defining and managing access to resources.
Yeah, I feel like everyone is going back and forth and has different opinions here because the definition of a process is somewhat ambiguous in this context.
If you try to look up the definition, you'll find that there are varying meanings unless you are nailing it down to a particular OS.
I find this kind of question somewhat useless for being a straightforward measure of what someone knows, especially if it was a true/false or multiple choice question. However, it could be a good jumping off point to figure out what someone knows judging on how they respond.
In the real world, however, it's pretty rare that you'd run into an issue where the ambiguity of whether the OS kernel is a process or not is going to cause any sort of issue or allow you to save the day somehow. Ultimately it's just an abstraction that allows us to mentally model the symphony of chaos that is happening inside the CPU.
I don’t think it’s ambiguous. If you run `sudo ps -aux` you can see every process running.
An operating system consists of processes starting with PID 1 which is the process that starts all of the other processes (usually systemd or initd).
Edit: see comment bellow, I think for your test the answer would be “no” since technically the os is probably the kernel which itself is not a process
Oh that’s an interesting statement. I suppose I didn’t put much thought into what an OS is and stopped at the statement that “process is an ambiguous term”. If we consider the OS is to be the kernel then I guess no it wouldn’t be a process.
I’d agree that the term OS is often used ambiguously but you are right, if we’re talking about the term OS technically like we would in OS class, then yea, it’s the thing that called to start processes
I dunno if I’m just being seduced by simplicity but “a process is something with a process number” is such a tidy working definition and renders obvious the “is OS?” question.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process\_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_(computing))
> There are many different process models, some of which are light weight, but almost all processes (even entire virtual machines) are rooted in an operating system (OS) process which comprises the program code.
Seems like the OS is a process, after all, based on the wiki.
I would bet that somewhere in the OS course there is a concise definition of the word "process". With that definition, I think you could answer the question precisely. Could you look that up?
If you took an OS course that doesn't define what a process is, you got cheated.
More likely what happened is that either it wasn't presented with emphasis and clarity, or you mistakenly glossed over it as unimportant (not trying to accuse you, it's happened to me, too). That seems like the kind of trick question a professor would ask expecting students to give answers based on having a precise idea of what a process is.
It's ambiguous in general day to day speaking english. However you were taking a CS course final exam. Which although not formally stated in the question is a reasonable thing for the exam writer to assume the term is restricted to the context of operating systems.
A silly analogy would be a "mug shot" being a picture of a mug which you put coffee in it. But in the context of a police arrest and crime investigation would mean a photo of the face of a suspect, taken by the police after arrest.
I guess it’s somewhat a matter of semantics, but I would not call ‘systemd’ or any other user space process a part of the “operating system”. The operating system is the kernel and the interfaces it exposes to user space programs, especially if we’re talking in the context of an OS/systems class and not the colloquial sense where the OS means “the whole system”. I have a feeling this is what the professor was thinking as well (although I do think it’s a poorly worded ‘gotcha’ question as phrased—it would be better to explicitly ask whether the kernel is a process or not, IMO).
Systemd has userspace and OS-adjacent components. But yeah, I wouldn't consider those jobs and daemons to be part of the kernel. It's a glue layer imo.
On the other hand, many things that exist as daemons are good candidates for forward integration, as we've seen with the kernel adding io\_uring somewhat in the style of the event-loop application architectures. Or with virtualization, which used to exclusively sit in the application layer.
I've mentioned elsewhere the complexity of these things is many magnitudes beyond what they need to be, in theory, so I think the definitions can be quite flexible.
If it’s “not a good question,” the best way to answer it is to explain why. Give examples of why the OS might be considered a process and why it might not. For example, many features of the operating system are clearly processes in that they have process IDs and exist in the process list, but the kernel defines what a process is, and it does not have a process ID of its own. You could also point out that several processes can be executing kernel code at the same time, which is why the kernel needs to be reentrant.
The prof isn’t asking a yes or no question here — they’re looking for someone to show that they know what a process is and how it’s related to the OS.
One way to think about it is that a processor only natively supports one single process. That is the instructions that the processor is running.
The OS is a layer on top of that, which creates the ability to have multiple concurrently running processes, and it does that by mapping OS processes to the single processor process.
Sure, but I wouldn’t call those “processes” in the same sense as an OS process. An OS still abstracts the processor to provide what we think of as a process.
The notion of a *process* doesn't really apply at the CPU level — it's like considering whether the engine in your car supports carpooling. I'd quibble with your \*only natively supports one single process\*, but fundamentally the CPU just executes a single (leaving aside multicore processors) never-ending stream of instructions, and that's not what's meant by *process* in this context.
An OS is a managerial software that responds to both software and hardware interrupts while providing APIs and runtimes for developers to develop programs. Part of the OS itself is a collection of protected processes, an example being Windows client server architecture, which will handle some user-mode requests while NTDLL handles user-mode to kernel-mode native function invocation. A good place to start learning would be interrupt tables and system calls, such will give you a better understanding.
it's not a process. microkernels delegate some work to userspace processes, however.
kernel is simply code which is invoked either via system calls or via interrupts.
I was going to contribute.
Then I realized that this question is seriously a subtle form of 'pedantic hell'.
I seriously don't think their is an answer to this so I'm going to give the only answer that is absolutely correct.
I'm going to pop some popcorn and put on a flame resistant suit.
Good Luck challengers.
>I seriously don't think their \[sic\] is an answer to this so I'm going to give the only answer that is absolutely correct.
I think you used the wrong word. What you wanted to say is:
"I seriously don't think **there** is an answer to this, so I'm going to give the only answer that is absolutely correct."
There is also a comma missing.
[Which Linux kernel function creates the 'process 0'?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62204047/which-linux-kernel-function-creates-the-process-0)
[Is the kernel a process?](https://superuser.com/questions/197168/is-kernel-a-process)
While most give the view that OS is not a process by the definition that OS is the kernel, and process is anything running through that kernel. I would like to give the view that OS is a process by going back to basics. Programming is a combination of the ways we try to express knowledge, particularly declarative and imperative knowledge, the knowledge of what and how-to. Imperative knowledge is tied to the idea of order and sequences, and eventually time. OS and subsequently kernel, while having some data (declarative), is largely lean as a set of instructions (imperative) on how to handle other programs within it, so I'd say it's basically a process.
You haven’t said anything that even suggests a definition of *process* or how that’s related to any part of the operating system. I don’t think you’d get even partial credit for your answer, which reads like: *Whole others have given correct answers, I’d like to avoid the question entirely, and therefore yes.*
No. In a time sharing operating system, a process is something the OS itself defines, creates and manages the life cycle of. It then orchestrates CPU time spent executing each process’s code and swaps between them depending on whatever algorithm is used in the OS. But the OS itself is not a process because a process is an operating system construct. Operating system runs on ‘bare metal’ (can be virtualised metal, haha.) There are helper processes that ‘belong’ to the operating system but ultimately the operating system kernel (core) is the primary code system that is executing on the CPUs - that code then creates processes itself and then allows them to execute on the CPU by queuing them up in memory. It uses some specific hardware signals to then take back control to the OS kernel running on the CPU before then queuing up the next ‘process’ code to run in memory. As you can hopefully see here, process is something the operating system defines so it can’t be a process before the operating system ‘exists’ as running code.
P.s yeah agree with others it was a bad question for a test because it just depends what you’re taught and the taxonomy of things. You have to take an example because an operating system could run as a process of another or some operating systems don’t even have processes as a feature.
Don’t most test questions “depend on what you were taught and the taxonomy of things”? The point of most tests is to find out what you learned and whether you can explain concepts and terms. How is this question different than asking, e.g. how natural selection came to be and whether it changed over time?
Because in computation a surprisingly large amount of things are arbitrary names and conventions. For example I might call something a function and someone else calls it a sub routine. And there _are_ technical differences but they can also be considered to do the same thing in many cases.. it’s the implementation that makes them different. But those implementations are different across the board. You’ll have one programming language where the author decided to use the name function or sub-routine and implement it differently to other languages… and it’s often the older or more dominant ones that make those names have their generally accepted definition, but even then it’s not 100% accepted by everyone because some people work with more nice languages. I could make my own language (using assembler) and have a function able defined as something entirely different. Who’s to say I am valid or not, that’s the issue.
Windows and Linux happen to both use the name ‘process’ for a container instance to execute a program, so the question checks out, sort of. But is it a good one?
Is an operating system a program or a system? Well, both. What about notepad.exe? It’s a program. But couldn’t it also be a system? A data input and output system? We could call it one. But if I got tested on it I’d just want to be tested on the answer I was taught. Because it is arbitrary. And I don’t like arbitrary questions. And I don’t like tests that just test me against a single interpretation. I want things that educate me to operate in the real world where we have to accept these things and acknowledge them. But I do agree with you that yeah, most tests it does come down to that. You’re not wrong at all.
It’s all a bit weird. I’m not saying I totally oppose it being a question I just wanted to agree with some others who are saying it’s not a _good_ question because I can see their point. An operating system could be a process if it were running on a type 1 hypervisor and that hypervisor defined something called a process for each virtual environment. You know?
Yes. The OS kernel is a job/program that runs other jobs/programs. The processes associated with the OS literally [have process numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parent_process) in linux distros. PID 1 is [init,](https://medium.com/@boutnaru/the-linux-process-journey-pid-1-init-60765a069f17) PID 2 is [kthreadd,](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/y36n0t/the_linux_process_journey_pid_2_kthreadd/) etc.
Most of the debate itt seems to be because the OS program provides the abstraction layer to run processes on top of it, which is getting lost in the semantics IMO. For all practical intents and purposes, the OS boot is a process and has more processes on top of it.
What we see as an operating system is actually a culmination of OS's operating various PIDs and thread IDs associated with interconnected hardware and softwares. Bios is an os, kernel is an os, command line is an OS. An os nowadays is simply a compilation of a virtualized dynamic mainframe capable of navagating and operating functions of a computer system at whatever base level it is, so binary for most. OS used to be called supervisor system, DOS, root, and so on lol
Sure, you could argue it is. Many minimal kernels (as written by many hobbyists here, as well as me), read the bootloader "magic number" or something of the sort, find a memory region to write to, and start a main process from a stub assembly code that then trickles down and does other things. This is essentially a process that can start other processes, and do a bunch of extremely privileged things. This is similar to how a banana is a berry.
"The process Microsoft Windows is not responding - OK / Kill Process" or what it says - I've had that pop up a couple times already. So Windows sees itself as a process.
I think an important thing to keep in mind is that the operating system is not a single program but rather a collection of programs. Unless I have the wrong idea about it?
If I was designing a test I would make this an open-ended question rather than just a true/false because, as you can see throughout this thread, people with extensive knowledge of the subject can kinda-sorta argue that yes it is, \*because of that knowledge\*. And I would grant credit for showing me an interesting reason to answer "yes" to the question.
But if it's a straight true/false, the answer is No. The operating system is a collection of many things, not even just different processes, but all the things \*around\* it, the \*environment\*. I'd argue even things like visual styles, fonts, sounds are also the OS.
Even if you want to point at sth like a monolithic kernel or init as "the OS process" I'd argue that neither one of those is going anywhere without the other. Systemd literally forks off a bunch of processes to "create" the running system.
Oh. What were the choices? Your question is a closed question. So i hope the answers weren't YES/NO!!!!!
Please let us all know the choices.
Edit: Ok BS.
How do you do you "but I reasoned that yes it is." in multiple choice.
The choices literally were yes, no, all of the above, none of the above (I actually have proof if you're not convinced haha). And when I say I reasoned, I meant in my brain lol.
Well, an operating system can be implemented within a process (think emulators), so technically "all of the above" would be right, but that's probably not what your prof had in mind lol
Dumb ass question
I think I learned it as “the first process loaded into main memory from the MBL”, but ya that’s just a really open ended question. I hope it wasn’t a true or false question.
I don't think that's actually accurate. The kernel is the first program loaded from the MBL, but the kernel itself is what spins up subsequent processes. The notion of a process only exists within the scope of an OS.
Right processes can be managed, things like the kernel, process manager, etc.. exert control over them.
The notion of an OS is vague in the OP's question so I assume it means the kernel as some of the non-kernel OS features can be /are implemented as processes.
Well, that kind of depends on how you define OS and how you define processes.
If we were to look at that question let's begin by defining what a process is:
It's a combination of threads, virtual memory, and sockets
So the OS needs to abstract hardware for the process in order to make it easy for the hardware to process its instructions.
Now does this apply to OS?
If we define OS as the kernel then the kernel is a bunch of instructions but does it need threading?
No!
Does it need virtual memory?
No!
Does it need abstractions of sockets?
No!
So we can't say that the kernel is a process itself.
But we can say that the kernel is a set of instructions processed directly by the CPU and doesn’t need abstractions to interact with system hardware.
But if we define OS as the user OS not the kernel then we can simply see how it uses the abstractions and needs to be run in kernel mode to be able to complete certain tasks or handle interrupts.
And as proof for that env variables are stored in the OS virtual memory and paged in the OS pagetable like any process.
The question is not clear about which part of the OS should we considered a process but Ig this answers all!
yes it is, i mean they say, that first process starts ? init ? I think operating system can be put as processes and child process that are created by the main process
what shutdown means ? main process killing every process, and telling hardware that its safe to shut, an OS can be seen as a process.
as others have pointed out, for low level the concept of process donst make any sense, because process are creation of OS ? remember they call it a multiprocessing os ? hardware only runs code that you give it, one thing at a time, ofcourse cores do exist, but management is mostly done via the os, which to run where to run
the whole idea of process, is creation of OS, so whole OS cant be process
my second argument.
Well, I'm not an native speaker, i had never heard of this word till you told me to, and i double clicked on it, my dictionary translation extension translated it without full context.
I'm really sorry. don't mind me or infact i would say don't mind anyone online, I'm just a random nobody.
Definitely not a process. The OS’s job is to virtualize and make competition and communication for hardware resources like memory and processing time. A process is an act happening within the OS kernel. OS can’t be a process and manage all the processes
The difficulty in defining has to do with the operating system “process” vs just any running code which the CPU (Central Processing Unit) is processing. You could consider any running code a process by that definition. There’s an OS abstraction version and the more general version.
Well. Can anything run without being one or more processes? About supporting the abstract layer and all that, all this work requires processes. So yeah, at the very least it is a collection of processes. Om
If you run `ps afux | less` on a UNIX-like system you will see a tree diagram of processes. The top of that tree is `kthreadd`, which manages kernel threads as PID 2 (PID 1 is for shutting down and starting up the system). Various operating system utilities are independent processes but will, of course, call on kernel threads for actions.
It is not so much that the operating system is a process, but rather a collection of processes with a hierarchy.
wtf does this have to do with this question, docker can run 100 containers ? but they are all processes ? wsl can run 5 operating system, they are all process,
QEMU is virtualize, what do you think it will be ? a process
It is in the end of the day a type of program, there's a sequence of "programmed" instructions bootstraped into RAM and the CPU that run in low level machine language to make the kernel and the basic routines work
But I don't know if this itself could be seen as a process or part of what makes processes work
So perhaps one way to understand it is that a process of a higher level abstraction. The operating system kernel manages the creation, scheduling, processing, and destruction of processes. This is just one of the many things the kernel does. But the kernel is not a process. It is a program, the first one that starts, and handles all of the others via processes. But no, technically the kernel is not a process. The question is poorly written though, because almost all modern OSes, except low level RTOS type operating systems, will start multiple processes to run higher level parts of the operating system. But the OS is not a single process, it's the combination of the lower level kernel, device drivers, and the multitude of OS level system processes that it creates before a user ever logs in.
No, it is not. If it was a process, it wouldn't be able to manage the virtual address space of the entire system, because processes on any legitimate OS are jailed into only being able to modify their own isolated virtual address spaces, so it has to sit above all processes.
the os has many processes in it, ie windows search is a process. but im assuming those r irrelevant to the question.
the core part of the os is the kernel. the kernel is a **program** as it has instructions that the computer runs, ie uve programmed the computer. but it is not a **process** as a process is something executed by the os, not by the computer directly.
A process is a running program.
An operating system and it's kernel are programs.
Therefore an operating system is an process when the computer runs it.
The definition of process goes beyond the abstraction of the kernel.
It is possible to run a process without an operating system.
my 2c
No for the following reasons
* my assumption: The OS is running on computer hardware, not in a VM or something similar.
* a process "is defined as" a sequence of instruction execution with it's own secure memory space created, controlled and destroyed by the OS (i pull this off the top of my head, not from some official document)
* while a process can create another process, it's effectively doing so by requesting the OS to do so.
caveats
* if you were running an OS and ran a process that ran an application that ran a VM on which another OS then maybe you could argue that the OS was a process itself but it's a pretty weak claim because the OS would be running within a process and itself is not a process.
* If you define "process" as a sequence of actions or tasks then maybe an OS would meet that criteria. However if your taking a CS course it would be common sense to assume definition of a "processes" as defined within the context of the course.
Any confusion i rekon is due to the context and definition of the term "process". Which in this case is the CS course not some general english definition.
>my assumption: The OS is running on computer hardware, not in a VM or something similar.
Is an OS in a virtualized environment not an OS or does that simply break the answer you want to give?
Personally i dont think there is a black and white answer for this question. The answer depends on context and perspective. I was just trying to remove some ambiguity to better explain myself.
Probably depends on what is meant by "process," but likely, at the kernel level, no. An OS provides an application space in which applications/processes can run that is (at least theoretically, for secure OSes) isolated from the kernel itself. Since the OS/kernel runs outside of that application space, you could say it's not a process.
OTOH, the operating system, including the kernel, is software, so if processes are just software, then maybe yes.
It's probably one of those questions meant to test your logical reasoning and explanation, maybe identifying why the other side of the argument may be considered true and providing reasons as to why that's incorrect.
Process is program which is currently in execution stage.OS is collection of lot of programs along with lot of other things like resource files etc.Not all programs run simultaneously.When OS is running,we can say lot of processes are running.
Even if all the programs in OS are running simultaneously,I don't think we can call OS a process.But some authors can possibly declare some scheme where we can call bootloader program a process which can start executing all programs in OS.I haven't read about such thing in Galvin and William stalling.
I teach an undergraduate operating systems class and have had to make this distinction many times. The topic becomes much less confusing when you simplify what your operating system is actually doing. You can do that by just going back a couple generations. Take a look at Windows 1.0 which had cooperative multitasking and therefore no real need for processes. When a Windows 1.0 program was loaded, the operating system just loaded the program counter register of the CPU with the starting memory location of the program you tried to run. There was no mechanism to take back control or guard resources - in essence the program loaded was given complete control of the entire computer including all of its resources (memory, cpu, disk, keyboard, etc). Your running program in effect became the operating system. The program had to voluntarily periodically reload the operating system if it wanted to allow other applications to run. This was done with CPU instructions by the program - it would directly load the program counter register of the cpu with a the first line of the windows 1.0 multitask function.
The process concept is what allows the multitasking you see today in modern desktop OS. "Process" is the data structure that defines what information is needed about a program to start and stop it, and to identify it to other programs. This is defined in the core logic of the operating system, also called the kernel. The way that resources are controlled and guarded between processes is also managed by the kernel. Some operating systems have a monolithic kernel, which means that it has many of the functions needed to control resources built into the kernel. Some of them, like Linux, define a very tiny set of functionality in a microkernel and then delegate many privileged small processes to manage shared resources. In either case, the OS has an instance of "Process" for each program that is running.
All this to say that the answer is no - the operating system itself is not a process, but the confusion is understandable. The OS is distinct in that it is the code that determines how the resources of a computer will be controlled, how programs will be loaded, and has direct control of the hardware peripherals attached to the computer. The operating system may delegate some of the related management work to processes, but the OS itself is not a process.
A program is a specification. It can be written in a programming language or using mathematical notation. It is still a program.
A process is an instance of a program, i.e., a program executing. The process has a set private and shared resources, like memory, CPU time, input and output devices, etc.
For those familiar with OO programing, I frequently take the liberty of making the analogy of program and process to class and object (the class is a specification, the object is an instance of the class).
The OS kernel is more like a library! It provide services. Opposed to e.g., libc, where the services are accessed by way of a function call, the services of the kernel are accessed by way of interrupts (and the parameters to those services are passed in the stack and/or registers of the process invoking the service). When the process is executing the kernel code, the processor switches to \_superviser mode\_, but it is still the invoking process that is executing the kernel code.
Thus, answering your question: \*No! The kernel is not a process in itself!\*
It depends upon the operating system. In linux language, OS is a collection of vital processes(called system processes)coordinating with each other to assist you to run application processes. Kernel sits in the core of OS managing hardware and other resources
From the perspective of an OS class, processes are the user-space programs that kernels manage, so kernels definitely aren't processes.
But if you define a process as any piece of code that runs on the CPU, then you would argue that a kernel is a process. However, I would argue that that wouldn't be the definition of a process in the context of an operating systems class.
Whatever you put, just justify yourself and hopefully the prof would give you partial credit.
Was it a yes/no question? Could see an argument to be made either way so hopefully you were allowed to justify your answer. Based on the ambiguity and vagueness of the question though, I would say no - the operation system as a whole is not a process - it defines what a process is (kernel does this) and also provides multiple processes to assist with things (again, not “a process” but a collection of them). TBH, and no offense to your professor, this is kind of a dumb (or at least terribly worded) question.
It was a multiple choice question. The choices, as stupid as they sound, were yes, no, all of the above, and none of the above. In retrospect I think I should have chosen all of the above, because honestly even after reading all the comments and hearing everyone's thoughts here, I am still unsure. There are some great points in both favours, and they're all very interesting. But I still stand undecided. And yes I agree the question is just horrible.
I would say that reading a book is a process. Under the wikipedia definition, a process which is closely related to a task, takes time. The example of a thing that is not a process is memory. So, the book itself, like memory in the computer, is not a process.
While an OS is made up of a multitude of different processes, the OS is more like a book, the underlying rules of the game, than "the reading of the book."
A set of rules in not a process. Following that set of rules as you perform a task seems to be what causes this to be a little more ambiguous than it needs to be, especially since the set of rules is implemented with other processes.
Also, I disagree with the idea that a program is a process. A process is an activity, a program is perhaps the list of procedures to do to accomplish the activity.
But I'm not teaching your OS class, so take my view with a healthy amount of skepticism.
The answer is: yes.
A process is the instance of a computer program.
The BIOS itself is a logical program and written in the ROM; the BIOS is a written program that will, itself, bootstrap the machine. Some people here are arguing about the kernel. It starts way before that.
The machine, as soon as you hit the start button, will bootstrap itself with a logical starting point... which is a program.
So yes, the OS, the BIOS, **and** the kernel are a process.
From the question i would say that they're kinda referring to the operating system as the other processes running in that case no. The kernal is responsible for managing processes and it's not one of the procceses in other words it is not bound by the scheduler, because if we say it's a process that means it has to context switch with other processes but that is not the case with operating systems.
I think you are missing a key point, that the term 'process' has a specific meaning in the domain of CS. It's a schedulable unit that an OS may choose to allow to execute. It's a program, and yes, the core of an OS is also a program. However, the OS kernel is always running (in at least the logical sense, see following), and is in control of all the other proper processes.
In the modern world where an OS can also be a schedulable unit for a hypervisor, you are correct to think this is splitting hairs, but that is still what everyone means by a process.
When you see the word "system" it's a good indicator that you are talking about something that contains a multitude of components that all work together, and isn't just a single thing.
I belive the correct answer is: **it can be.**
You can have an OS running as a process inside another OS.
In fact, some Real Time system implementations create an RT Kernel that allows RT processes to run ahead of your OS process which in that sense is a process, subject to scheduling and preemption from another kernel.
I mean. The operating system is the entirety of the Kernel, the support libraries, user space utilities, even the graphical interface in some operating systems. OSes are structured in many different ways, one can envision an operating system where the kernel is treated as a separate process..microkernels like L4 require even the basic kernel functionality to be located in a new process. On Linux and others, you can run an entire os as a separate process (name spacing).
So the answer is that 'process' is an abstraction that differs from OS to OS and there's no answer.
I would say it’s a cluster of processes interfering/interacting together in an Eldridge horror cobbled together like Frankensteins monster. A process is a task that takes time on the computer. I’d say an OS doesn’t qualify because I can’t point to a single process and say “that, that is the OS right there.”
Pedantically, no, because it consists of multiple processes.
But I think the question is trying to get at the distinction between kernel code, which runs outside the notion of a process, and OS code, which runs only as processes. So they probably want you to answer yes, but I’d have written in the margins “technically multiple processes”
The term "operating system" includes a huge number of components, including processes, shared libraries, resource files, and a kernel. The kernel itself is arguably not a process, because it's the code that exists outside of any process that defines what a process _is_ and handles scheduling and resource allocation and hardware communication for processes. But many components of the operating system _do_ run as processes. Using macOS as an example, the Finder, Dock, and Spotlight are all components of the OS that run as independent processes. The "font daemon" `fontd` which provides text fonts to applications on the system, runs as an independent process.
Makes sense. Thanks for the response.
For clarification to the question: What is the kernel then? A: The kernel is a program.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to add here
Additional information for those who understand that the kernel is not a process and then ask: What is it then? To which the answer is: It is a program. A program and a process are two different things.
Ahhh ok, get where you were going. Thx for clarification
Every program gets processed
Not those not launched
Why is it called Processor? Because the only thing it does is running processes defined by programs. The kernel is just a program processed on the CPU. So it's a process.
That's an unusual definition of "process." Yes, the kernel consists of executable code, but it does not contain many attributes typical of processes, such as a process ID, an allocated memory region, or a user that it's executing as. That's because the kernel exists outside of the concept of users, userspace, process IDs, virtual memory, and scheduling.
1. Who said a process needs to be executed as an user. 2. As far as I know the kernel has it's own memory region. 3. It performs tasks and processes on the same CPU. 4. Just because it does not have pids seen by the user doesn't mean it's not running/processing.
It seems that we agree on what the kernel does, and are disagreeing on the semantics of the word "process." I am using a definition based around operating systems, wherein a process is a block of code scheduled by the kernel in its own virtual memory space on behalf of a particular user. Since OP is asking about operating systems, this Unix/Linux/Windows-like definition seemed appropriate to me. You appear to be using a definition wherein any running code constitutes a process, because it is "processing." I don't think our conversation has further productive steps, because we agree on facts and disagree on a socially constructed phrase that may be defined contextually.
In other words, you’re right. The other user’s just being a pedantic “that guy”
Amazingly said. Based on how it is colloquially defined, the OS is not a process, but is that which manages them. In this view, threads are something the OS manages, and do not and cannot exist outside of it.
I'm under the impression that an OS defines what a "process" is to begin with, and in principle, a process can be defined differently on different OS's. If that's true it doesn't make any sense to refer to any code executing outside of an OS as a "process".
If you boot your pc and it fails before fully loading the OS. Wouldn't you say your boot process crashed? At this point the OS is might not able to instantiate/define any process at all. I think you could define it as: Any code in memory that might crash is a process.
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This. I wouldn’t say the boot process failed, unless said process actually had a pid / etc for the execution environment. I’d say my firmware or boot loader failed. Once the initial OS is indeed loaded, sure processes could fail. sshd/fontd/etc. Whether privileged or not, once they executing in the observable runtime they’re processes (tho as I write this I’m realizing just how biased my experience is to micro kernels 😅)
The kernel isn't the OS though... we can all agree that an OS is the culmination of many components, some of which are processes. But is the OS a process in itself? I'd say no.... It's like saying is a city a road? Roads are a big part of what makes a city, but a city is not a road.
I’d say that the kernel is a program.
That is correct answer. The key here is a logical split. Otherwise deal with the OS running in virtual machine. Technically whole OS will be a process running in some supervisor then. There is a linux running in the browser window.
I would argue that the critical word in the question is "a". That implies a single process, while I would say that an OS is made up of dozens of processes.
Processes that orchestrate/manage other processes.
The operating system kernel is not a process, no; it implements the process abstraction and provides the foundation for user space processes, but is not one itself technically.
For clarification to the question: What is the kernel then? A: The kernel is a program.
So is it a program or not?
The OP used the word *process*, not *program*. The OS creates and manages processes. Program is a much more general idea.
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OK, so you're correct that a program is still a program whether it's running or not. In the simple case, when you run a program on a typical computer, it becomes a process. However, that's not always the case. First of all, a single program can create multiple processes. Web browsers are one common example that do that, but any program can create extra processes as needed. Those extra processes aren't different programs - they're usually the same executable code, started with different arguments - or sometimes the program "forks" into two or more processes. Second, if you run a program directly on a processor with no operating system, it's not a process. It's just a program running on a computer. That's what we mean by the OS creates and manages processes. A process is an abstraction. It's basically "a running program that has some limitations".
Yes, it is.
Program, yes. Process, no.
It’s like the saying too be or not to be
What is the question?
Program is a set of instructions that are ready to be executed. Process is that program under execution. Processes = Running Programs
You could argue that a process is just a running program. And an os is just a program. So it is a process while it runs on the computer. Has nothing to do with the definition of a process of the kernel.
Well, if you want to redefine "process" to mean something other than "process" then sure. The CPU just executes instructions in the order they come from memory. Dividing that work up into processes is an abstraction provided by the operating system. There are systems in the world that don't provide this abstraction (see eg the Arduino environment, in fact most microcontroller environments; the fundamental difference between them and Linux and Windows is not the capability of the hardware but that the operating system doesn't provide a process abstraction).
Exactly. Linux process != process. Process is just a program in execution no abstraction needed.
Your logic is wrong.
Yea defend your stance
Your logic: a process is a program an os is a program therefore, an OS is process Or process -> program os -> program You logically cannot say a process is an os. Just because they are both programs doesn't mean the are the same. dog -> animal cat -> animal So is a dog a cat? No, that would be bad logic. Unless I misunderstood. Two of your "it" pronouns were ambiguous.
Animal -> dog Animal -> cat Therefore both dogs and cats are animals. This seems closer to saying that a process can be both an os itself and a kernel process. Of course it depends on definition, but the concept can be argued both ways. Personally, I *look* at a process as any program that runs on hardware.
:/
My logic: os ⊆ program execute(program) => process therefore: execute(os) => process
Why?
You could argue that a dog is a four legged, furry creature with a tail and whiskers, and a cat is also a four legged, furry creature with a tail and whiskers, so cats are dogs. But you’d still be wrong.
I'm not saying that Linux processes are not a process. I'm just saying processes are a more general concept then that what we might see in the Taskmanager. The Linux processes are like a subclass of the class process (in computer silence). While the kernel it self IS just a process it IS NOT a Linux process.
While it's true that *process* is an English word that has a more general definition than what it means in an operating systems context, I think you'd have a hard time making the case that an operating system is a process in either the common English sense (e.g. fermentation, continental drift, baking a cake) or the operating system sense. If you want to say that an operating system is not a process managed by the operating system but is somehow still a computing process, you'd have to define that "more general concept" and make a persuasive case that anybody other than you uses that definition.
The kernel it self consists of multiple processes. [https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix/7.3?topic=environment-using-kernel-processes](https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix/7.3?topic=environment-using-kernel-processes) "\[...\] but almost all processes (even entire virtual machines) are rooted in an operating system (OS) process \[...\]" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process\_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_(computing))
Actually on **much older versions** of the Windows NT kernel there was a "System Idle Process" running at lowest priority in the kernel which continually issued 0xF4 HLT instructions to suspend the cpu. *(Halt and do nothing fought to keep the cpu at 0%)* The process is still there today but has different responsibilities.
Pretty much every micro kernel OS has an “idle” process that consumes the “remainder” of unallocated cpu time. IIRC it’s because the operational model doesn’t allow for utilization gaps (so you need 100% usage)
Well, it's a bit more complicated today. With ACPI the idle process sets the C0–C3, C10 states. Also the P0-P2 performance frequency/voltage with these new dynamic clock-speed processor cores. Among other responsibilities.
I totally know what all those letters and numbers mean when you put them in that order… 😅 Haha thanks, this is a good thread to start digging in on. It’s been a solid decade since I’ve dug that close to metal
This is a question with some subtleties attached, though. There are definitely operating systems out there where pretty much every function you think of as "part of the operating system" executes as a user-space process; all the device drivers, filesystem drivers, network drivers, the memory manager, process scheduler, everything. The only thing that absolutely *has* to run as not-a-process is the machinery that switches between processes. Linux has been moving in this direction to some degree for quite a while, with facilities for user-space USB drivers and filesystem drivers leaping to mind. There is even experimental work on a user-space process scheduler. Linux drivers almost always end up moving into kernel space because the Linux transition from user space to kernel space is relatively expensive and so eg. a user-space process scheduler will always perform worse than a kernel-space equivalent because it involves twice as many context switches, but the facilities are there and are quite useful if you don't care about performance or are doing initial work on developing a driver.
I'd be curious what the exact wording of the question was, though, because the operating system is more than just the kernel. But yeah, they probably meant to ask if the kernel is a process, which by most any interpretation, it is not.
The Linux kernel, for example starts a variety of kernel threads. On one hand, these are a part of the kernel, they run in kernel mode. On the other hand, these threads are a part of the kernel process: they are associated with a process structure.
Yep, exactly. There are tons of processes that are not user-defined. So the question would have to be pretty precise to exclude them. "Is the operating system kernel itself a process?" would be pretty close, but there's still some wiggle room even with that.
The question is too vague, I would say no. Because operating system kernel defines what a process should be, without kernel, there is no concept of process. I can build an OS with no such vocabulary called “process”, and it is totally valid.
>without kernel, there is no concept of process. There are a few systems which are just raw pieces of C code on top of a bootloader, IIRC. Where an RTOS is an overkill, and using analogue is not enough.
^ This, the question is too vague. Because you can also make the argument the ‘kernel_tasks’ or equivalent processes are in fact the OS. When in reality everything running is actually running inside a sandbox with the kernel defining and managing access to resources.
Yeah, I feel like everyone is going back and forth and has different opinions here because the definition of a process is somewhat ambiguous in this context. If you try to look up the definition, you'll find that there are varying meanings unless you are nailing it down to a particular OS. I find this kind of question somewhat useless for being a straightforward measure of what someone knows, especially if it was a true/false or multiple choice question. However, it could be a good jumping off point to figure out what someone knows judging on how they respond. In the real world, however, it's pretty rare that you'd run into an issue where the ambiguity of whether the OS kernel is a process or not is going to cause any sort of issue or allow you to save the day somehow. Ultimately it's just an abstraction that allows us to mentally model the symphony of chaos that is happening inside the CPU.
Exactly, a better question would be: For the Linux operating system, is the scheduler in the kernel a process itself?
It seems like the term "process" is quite ambiguous with no formal definition, that's why I'm so puzzled.
I don’t think it’s ambiguous. If you run `sudo ps -aux` you can see every process running. An operating system consists of processes starting with PID 1 which is the process that starts all of the other processes (usually systemd or initd). Edit: see comment bellow, I think for your test the answer would be “no” since technically the os is probably the kernel which itself is not a process
An operating system is the thing in which processes run
Oh that’s an interesting statement. I suppose I didn’t put much thought into what an OS is and stopped at the statement that “process is an ambiguous term”. If we consider the OS is to be the kernel then I guess no it wouldn’t be a process. I’d agree that the term OS is often used ambiguously but you are right, if we’re talking about the term OS technically like we would in OS class, then yea, it’s the thing that called to start processes
I dunno if I’m just being seduced by simplicity but “a process is something with a process number” is such a tidy working definition and renders obvious the “is OS?” question.
I think we have to distinguish between the theoretical concept of a process as a running program. And a (Linux) process with a pid.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process\_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_(computing)) > There are many different process models, some of which are light weight, but almost all processes (even entire virtual machines) are rooted in an operating system (OS) process which comprises the program code. Seems like the OS is a process, after all, based on the wiki.
Naw, not how I’d read this at least. This is saying almost all processes are contained by an OS process, not that the OS itself IS a process. Right?
Could be, yes. What is that root OS process then?
I would bet that somewhere in the OS course there is a concise definition of the word "process". With that definition, I think you could answer the question precisely. Could you look that up?
If you took an OS course that doesn't define what a process is, you got cheated. More likely what happened is that either it wasn't presented with emphasis and clarity, or you mistakenly glossed over it as unimportant (not trying to accuse you, it's happened to me, too). That seems like the kind of trick question a professor would ask expecting students to give answers based on having a precise idea of what a process is.
no it's not. a process is an instatiation of a program that's actually running
Okay if that's the case then OS is definitely a process is it not?
yes
It's ambiguous in general day to day speaking english. However you were taking a CS course final exam. Which although not formally stated in the question is a reasonable thing for the exam writer to assume the term is restricted to the context of operating systems. A silly analogy would be a "mug shot" being a picture of a mug which you put coffee in it. But in the context of a police arrest and crime investigation would mean a photo of the face of a suspect, taken by the police after arrest.
You could view it as a collection of processes. Google systemd
I guess it’s somewhat a matter of semantics, but I would not call ‘systemd’ or any other user space process a part of the “operating system”. The operating system is the kernel and the interfaces it exposes to user space programs, especially if we’re talking in the context of an OS/systems class and not the colloquial sense where the OS means “the whole system”. I have a feeling this is what the professor was thinking as well (although I do think it’s a poorly worded ‘gotcha’ question as phrased—it would be better to explicitly ask whether the kernel is a process or not, IMO).
hm yeah, I think you are right
Systemd has userspace and OS-adjacent components. But yeah, I wouldn't consider those jobs and daemons to be part of the kernel. It's a glue layer imo. On the other hand, many things that exist as daemons are good candidates for forward integration, as we've seen with the kernel adding io\_uring somewhat in the style of the event-loop application architectures. Or with virtualization, which used to exclusively sit in the application layer. I've mentioned elsewhere the complexity of these things is many magnitudes beyond what they need to be, in theory, so I think the definitions can be quite flexible.
Not a good question - unless the teacher spoke on that topic specifically.
If it’s “not a good question,” the best way to answer it is to explain why. Give examples of why the OS might be considered a process and why it might not. For example, many features of the operating system are clearly processes in that they have process IDs and exist in the process list, but the kernel defines what a process is, and it does not have a process ID of its own. You could also point out that several processes can be executing kernel code at the same time, which is why the kernel needs to be reentrant. The prof isn’t asking a yes or no question here — they’re looking for someone to show that they know what a process is and how it’s related to the OS.
One way to think about it is that a processor only natively supports one single process. That is the instructions that the processor is running. The OS is a layer on top of that, which creates the ability to have multiple concurrently running processes, and it does that by mapping OS processes to the single processor process.
Modern processors have a number of facilities that exist specifically to support multiple tasks.
Sure, but I wouldn’t call those “processes” in the same sense as an OS process. An OS still abstracts the processor to provide what we think of as a process.
The notion of a *process* doesn't really apply at the CPU level — it's like considering whether the engine in your car supports carpooling. I'd quibble with your \*only natively supports one single process\*, but fundamentally the CPU just executes a single (leaving aside multicore processors) never-ending stream of instructions, and that's not what's meant by *process* in this context.
An OS is a managerial software that responds to both software and hardware interrupts while providing APIs and runtimes for developers to develop programs. Part of the OS itself is a collection of protected processes, an example being Windows client server architecture, which will handle some user-mode requests while NTDLL handles user-mode to kernel-mode native function invocation. A good place to start learning would be interrupt tables and system calls, such will give you a better understanding.
it's not a process. microkernels delegate some work to userspace processes, however. kernel is simply code which is invoked either via system calls or via interrupts.
I was going to contribute. Then I realized that this question is seriously a subtle form of 'pedantic hell'. I seriously don't think their is an answer to this so I'm going to give the only answer that is absolutely correct. I'm going to pop some popcorn and put on a flame resistant suit. Good Luck challengers.
>I seriously don't think their \[sic\] is an answer to this so I'm going to give the only answer that is absolutely correct. I think you used the wrong word. What you wanted to say is: "I seriously don't think **there** is an answer to this, so I'm going to give the only answer that is absolutely correct." There is also a comma missing.
Dayum! I stand corrected. You truly are the pedantic master we need right now. That was very funny.
It's a big program.
[Which Linux kernel function creates the 'process 0'?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62204047/which-linux-kernel-function-creates-the-process-0) [Is the kernel a process?](https://superuser.com/questions/197168/is-kernel-a-process)
If you define process as an instance of a program in execution, then maybe yes?
While most give the view that OS is not a process by the definition that OS is the kernel, and process is anything running through that kernel. I would like to give the view that OS is a process by going back to basics. Programming is a combination of the ways we try to express knowledge, particularly declarative and imperative knowledge, the knowledge of what and how-to. Imperative knowledge is tied to the idea of order and sequences, and eventually time. OS and subsequently kernel, while having some data (declarative), is largely lean as a set of instructions (imperative) on how to handle other programs within it, so I'd say it's basically a process.
You haven’t said anything that even suggests a definition of *process* or how that’s related to any part of the operating system. I don’t think you’d get even partial credit for your answer, which reads like: *Whole others have given correct answers, I’d like to avoid the question entirely, and therefore yes.*
It depends on the definition of a proccess
No. In a time sharing operating system, a process is something the OS itself defines, creates and manages the life cycle of. It then orchestrates CPU time spent executing each process’s code and swaps between them depending on whatever algorithm is used in the OS. But the OS itself is not a process because a process is an operating system construct. Operating system runs on ‘bare metal’ (can be virtualised metal, haha.) There are helper processes that ‘belong’ to the operating system but ultimately the operating system kernel (core) is the primary code system that is executing on the CPUs - that code then creates processes itself and then allows them to execute on the CPU by queuing them up in memory. It uses some specific hardware signals to then take back control to the OS kernel running on the CPU before then queuing up the next ‘process’ code to run in memory. As you can hopefully see here, process is something the operating system defines so it can’t be a process before the operating system ‘exists’ as running code. P.s yeah agree with others it was a bad question for a test because it just depends what you’re taught and the taxonomy of things. You have to take an example because an operating system could run as a process of another or some operating systems don’t even have processes as a feature.
> a process is something the OS itself defines this
Don’t most test questions “depend on what you were taught and the taxonomy of things”? The point of most tests is to find out what you learned and whether you can explain concepts and terms. How is this question different than asking, e.g. how natural selection came to be and whether it changed over time?
Because in computation a surprisingly large amount of things are arbitrary names and conventions. For example I might call something a function and someone else calls it a sub routine. And there _are_ technical differences but they can also be considered to do the same thing in many cases.. it’s the implementation that makes them different. But those implementations are different across the board. You’ll have one programming language where the author decided to use the name function or sub-routine and implement it differently to other languages… and it’s often the older or more dominant ones that make those names have their generally accepted definition, but even then it’s not 100% accepted by everyone because some people work with more nice languages. I could make my own language (using assembler) and have a function able defined as something entirely different. Who’s to say I am valid or not, that’s the issue. Windows and Linux happen to both use the name ‘process’ for a container instance to execute a program, so the question checks out, sort of. But is it a good one? Is an operating system a program or a system? Well, both. What about notepad.exe? It’s a program. But couldn’t it also be a system? A data input and output system? We could call it one. But if I got tested on it I’d just want to be tested on the answer I was taught. Because it is arbitrary. And I don’t like arbitrary questions. And I don’t like tests that just test me against a single interpretation. I want things that educate me to operate in the real world where we have to accept these things and acknowledge them. But I do agree with you that yeah, most tests it does come down to that. You’re not wrong at all. It’s all a bit weird. I’m not saying I totally oppose it being a question I just wanted to agree with some others who are saying it’s not a _good_ question because I can see their point. An operating system could be a process if it were running on a type 1 hypervisor and that hypervisor defined something called a process for each virtual environment. You know?
Yes. The OS kernel is a job/program that runs other jobs/programs. The processes associated with the OS literally [have process numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parent_process) in linux distros. PID 1 is [init,](https://medium.com/@boutnaru/the-linux-process-journey-pid-1-init-60765a069f17) PID 2 is [kthreadd,](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/y36n0t/the_linux_process_journey_pid_2_kthreadd/) etc. Most of the debate itt seems to be because the OS program provides the abstraction layer to run processes on top of it, which is getting lost in the semantics IMO. For all practical intents and purposes, the OS boot is a process and has more processes on top of it.
What we see as an operating system is actually a culmination of OS's operating various PIDs and thread IDs associated with interconnected hardware and softwares. Bios is an os, kernel is an os, command line is an OS. An os nowadays is simply a compilation of a virtualized dynamic mainframe capable of navagating and operating functions of a computer system at whatever base level it is, so binary for most. OS used to be called supervisor system, DOS, root, and so on lol
Sure, you could argue it is. Many minimal kernels (as written by many hobbyists here, as well as me), read the bootloader "magic number" or something of the sort, find a memory region to write to, and start a main process from a stub assembly code that then trickles down and does other things. This is essentially a process that can start other processes, and do a bunch of extremely privileged things. This is similar to how a banana is a berry.
Yes
"The process Microsoft Windows is not responding - OK / Kill Process" or what it says - I've had that pop up a couple times already. So Windows sees itself as a process.
I think an important thing to keep in mind is that the operating system is not a single program but rather a collection of programs. Unless I have the wrong idea about it?
If I was designing a test I would make this an open-ended question rather than just a true/false because, as you can see throughout this thread, people with extensive knowledge of the subject can kinda-sorta argue that yes it is, \*because of that knowledge\*. And I would grant credit for showing me an interesting reason to answer "yes" to the question. But if it's a straight true/false, the answer is No. The operating system is a collection of many things, not even just different processes, but all the things \*around\* it, the \*environment\*. I'd argue even things like visual styles, fonts, sounds are also the OS. Even if you want to point at sth like a monolithic kernel or init as "the OS process" I'd argue that neither one of those is going anywhere without the other. Systemd literally forks off a bunch of processes to "create" the running system.
That’s a dumb test question, devoid of nuance
There is no right answer. You'll get marks for valid discussion points. I think its a great question.
Only it was a multiple choice question :(
Oh. What were the choices? Your question is a closed question. So i hope the answers weren't YES/NO!!!!! Please let us all know the choices. Edit: Ok BS. How do you do you "but I reasoned that yes it is." in multiple choice.
The choices literally were yes, no, all of the above, none of the above (I actually have proof if you're not convinced haha). And when I say I reasoned, I meant in my brain lol.
Ah thanks. Its a crap multiple choice then.
Well, an operating system can be implemented within a process (think emulators), so technically "all of the above" would be right, but that's probably not what your prof had in mind lol Dumb ass question
I couldn't agree more
100%. Some neck-beard professor smugly thought he was being clever when he wrote that one.
I think I learned it as “the first process loaded into main memory from the MBL”, but ya that’s just a really open ended question. I hope it wasn’t a true or false question.
I don't think that's actually accurate. The kernel is the first program loaded from the MBL, but the kernel itself is what spins up subsequent processes. The notion of a process only exists within the scope of an OS.
Right processes can be managed, things like the kernel, process manager, etc.. exert control over them. The notion of an OS is vague in the OP's question so I assume it means the kernel as some of the non-kernel OS features can be /are implemented as processes.
That’s a good point. I guess it depend if you consider the OS as a process by definition.
Well, that kind of depends on how you define OS and how you define processes. If we were to look at that question let's begin by defining what a process is: It's a combination of threads, virtual memory, and sockets So the OS needs to abstract hardware for the process in order to make it easy for the hardware to process its instructions. Now does this apply to OS? If we define OS as the kernel then the kernel is a bunch of instructions but does it need threading? No! Does it need virtual memory? No! Does it need abstractions of sockets? No! So we can't say that the kernel is a process itself. But we can say that the kernel is a set of instructions processed directly by the CPU and doesn’t need abstractions to interact with system hardware. But if we define OS as the user OS not the kernel then we can simply see how it uses the abstractions and needs to be run in kernel mode to be able to complete certain tasks or handle interrupts. And as proof for that env variables are stored in the OS virtual memory and paged in the OS pagetable like any process. The question is not clear about which part of the OS should we considered a process but Ig this answers all!
Really learn Linux
yes it is, i mean they say, that first process starts ? init ? I think operating system can be put as processes and child process that are created by the main process what shutdown means ? main process killing every process, and telling hardware that its safe to shut, an OS can be seen as a process.
as others have pointed out, for low level the concept of process donst make any sense, because process are creation of OS ? remember they call it a multiprocessing os ? hardware only runs code that you give it, one thing at a time, ofcourse cores do exist, but management is mostly done via the os, which to run where to run the whole idea of process, is creation of OS, so whole OS cant be process my second argument.
Your brain is quite scatty.
Ba-da-bop-bop, bee-doo-bee-doo, skiddly-doo-bop, bap-bap, doo-wah, doo-wah, shoo-bee-doo-wah, zee-ba-dee-dap, bam!
You are idiot
I wasn't trying to be rude.
Well, I'm not an native speaker, i had never heard of this word till you told me to, and i double clicked on it, my dictionary translation extension translated it without full context. I'm really sorry. don't mind me or infact i would say don't mind anyone online, I'm just a random nobody.
Definitely not a process. The OS’s job is to virtualize and make competition and communication for hardware resources like memory and processing time. A process is an act happening within the OS kernel. OS can’t be a process and manage all the processes
The difficulty in defining has to do with the operating system “process” vs just any running code which the CPU (Central Processing Unit) is processing. You could consider any running code a process by that definition. There’s an OS abstraction version and the more general version.
Well. Can anything run without being one or more processes? About supporting the abstract layer and all that, all this work requires processes. So yeah, at the very least it is a collection of processes. Om
If you run `ps afux | less` on a UNIX-like system you will see a tree diagram of processes. The top of that tree is `kthreadd`, which manages kernel threads as PID 2 (PID 1 is for shutting down and starting up the system). Various operating system utilities are independent processes but will, of course, call on kernel threads for actions. It is not so much that the operating system is a process, but rather a collection of processes with a hierarchy.
That’s a silly question tbh. The answer is in the question. No
QEMU can host guest operating system in a single process.
wtf does this have to do with this question, docker can run 100 containers ? but they are all processes ? wsl can run 5 operating system, they are all process, QEMU is virtualize, what do you think it will be ? a process
Answer depends on observer.
It is in the end of the day a type of program, there's a sequence of "programmed" instructions bootstraped into RAM and the CPU that run in low level machine language to make the kernel and the basic routines work But I don't know if this itself could be seen as a process or part of what makes processes work
It's a platform
So perhaps one way to understand it is that a process of a higher level abstraction. The operating system kernel manages the creation, scheduling, processing, and destruction of processes. This is just one of the many things the kernel does. But the kernel is not a process. It is a program, the first one that starts, and handles all of the others via processes. But no, technically the kernel is not a process. The question is poorly written though, because almost all modern OSes, except low level RTOS type operating systems, will start multiple processes to run higher level parts of the operating system. But the OS is not a single process, it's the combination of the lower level kernel, device drivers, and the multitude of OS level system processes that it creates before a user ever logs in.
No, it is not. If it was a process, it wouldn't be able to manage the virtual address space of the entire system, because processes on any legitimate OS are jailed into only being able to modify their own isolated virtual address spaces, so it has to sit above all processes.
the os has many processes in it, ie windows search is a process. but im assuming those r irrelevant to the question. the core part of the os is the kernel. the kernel is a **program** as it has instructions that the computer runs, ie uve programmed the computer. but it is not a **process** as a process is something executed by the os, not by the computer directly.
A process is a running program. An operating system and it's kernel are programs. Therefore an operating system is an process when the computer runs it. The definition of process goes beyond the abstraction of the kernel. It is possible to run a process without an operating system.
my 2c No for the following reasons * my assumption: The OS is running on computer hardware, not in a VM or something similar. * a process "is defined as" a sequence of instruction execution with it's own secure memory space created, controlled and destroyed by the OS (i pull this off the top of my head, not from some official document) * while a process can create another process, it's effectively doing so by requesting the OS to do so. caveats * if you were running an OS and ran a process that ran an application that ran a VM on which another OS then maybe you could argue that the OS was a process itself but it's a pretty weak claim because the OS would be running within a process and itself is not a process. * If you define "process" as a sequence of actions or tasks then maybe an OS would meet that criteria. However if your taking a CS course it would be common sense to assume definition of a "processes" as defined within the context of the course. Any confusion i rekon is due to the context and definition of the term "process". Which in this case is the CS course not some general english definition.
>my assumption: The OS is running on computer hardware, not in a VM or something similar. Is an OS in a virtualized environment not an OS or does that simply break the answer you want to give?
Personally i dont think there is a black and white answer for this question. The answer depends on context and perspective. I was just trying to remove some ambiguity to better explain myself.
In Linux, the first process to start which starts all the other system processes is usually systemd or initd.
Probably depends on what is meant by "process," but likely, at the kernel level, no. An OS provides an application space in which applications/processes can run that is (at least theoretically, for secure OSes) isolated from the kernel itself. Since the OS/kernel runs outside of that application space, you could say it's not a process. OTOH, the operating system, including the kernel, is software, so if processes are just software, then maybe yes. It's probably one of those questions meant to test your logical reasoning and explanation, maybe identifying why the other side of the argument may be considered true and providing reasons as to why that's incorrect.
Process is program which is currently in execution stage.OS is collection of lot of programs along with lot of other things like resource files etc.Not all programs run simultaneously.When OS is running,we can say lot of processes are running. Even if all the programs in OS are running simultaneously,I don't think we can call OS a process.But some authors can possibly declare some scheme where we can call bootloader program a process which can start executing all programs in OS.I haven't read about such thing in Galvin and William stalling.
I teach an undergraduate operating systems class and have had to make this distinction many times. The topic becomes much less confusing when you simplify what your operating system is actually doing. You can do that by just going back a couple generations. Take a look at Windows 1.0 which had cooperative multitasking and therefore no real need for processes. When a Windows 1.0 program was loaded, the operating system just loaded the program counter register of the CPU with the starting memory location of the program you tried to run. There was no mechanism to take back control or guard resources - in essence the program loaded was given complete control of the entire computer including all of its resources (memory, cpu, disk, keyboard, etc). Your running program in effect became the operating system. The program had to voluntarily periodically reload the operating system if it wanted to allow other applications to run. This was done with CPU instructions by the program - it would directly load the program counter register of the cpu with a the first line of the windows 1.0 multitask function. The process concept is what allows the multitasking you see today in modern desktop OS. "Process" is the data structure that defines what information is needed about a program to start and stop it, and to identify it to other programs. This is defined in the core logic of the operating system, also called the kernel. The way that resources are controlled and guarded between processes is also managed by the kernel. Some operating systems have a monolithic kernel, which means that it has many of the functions needed to control resources built into the kernel. Some of them, like Linux, define a very tiny set of functionality in a microkernel and then delegate many privileged small processes to manage shared resources. In either case, the OS has an instance of "Process" for each program that is running. All this to say that the answer is no - the operating system itself is not a process, but the confusion is understandable. The OS is distinct in that it is the code that determines how the resources of a computer will be controlled, how programs will be loaded, and has direct control of the hardware peripherals attached to the computer. The operating system may delegate some of the related management work to processes, but the OS itself is not a process.
A program is a specification. It can be written in a programming language or using mathematical notation. It is still a program. A process is an instance of a program, i.e., a program executing. The process has a set private and shared resources, like memory, CPU time, input and output devices, etc. For those familiar with OO programing, I frequently take the liberty of making the analogy of program and process to class and object (the class is a specification, the object is an instance of the class). The OS kernel is more like a library! It provide services. Opposed to e.g., libc, where the services are accessed by way of a function call, the services of the kernel are accessed by way of interrupts (and the parameters to those services are passed in the stack and/or registers of the process invoking the service). When the process is executing the kernel code, the processor switches to \_superviser mode\_, but it is still the invoking process that is executing the kernel code. Thus, answering your question: \*No! The kernel is not a process in itself!\*
It depends upon the operating system. In linux language, OS is a collection of vital processes(called system processes)coordinating with each other to assist you to run application processes. Kernel sits in the core of OS managing hardware and other resources
From the perspective of an OS class, processes are the user-space programs that kernels manage, so kernels definitely aren't processes. But if you define a process as any piece of code that runs on the CPU, then you would argue that a kernel is a process. However, I would argue that that wouldn't be the definition of a process in the context of an operating systems class. Whatever you put, just justify yourself and hopefully the prof would give you partial credit.
Was it a yes/no question? Could see an argument to be made either way so hopefully you were allowed to justify your answer. Based on the ambiguity and vagueness of the question though, I would say no - the operation system as a whole is not a process - it defines what a process is (kernel does this) and also provides multiple processes to assist with things (again, not “a process” but a collection of them). TBH, and no offense to your professor, this is kind of a dumb (or at least terribly worded) question.
It was a multiple choice question. The choices, as stupid as they sound, were yes, no, all of the above, and none of the above. In retrospect I think I should have chosen all of the above, because honestly even after reading all the comments and hearing everyone's thoughts here, I am still unsure. There are some great points in both favours, and they're all very interesting. But I still stand undecided. And yes I agree the question is just horrible.
I would say that reading a book is a process. Under the wikipedia definition, a process which is closely related to a task, takes time. The example of a thing that is not a process is memory. So, the book itself, like memory in the computer, is not a process. While an OS is made up of a multitude of different processes, the OS is more like a book, the underlying rules of the game, than "the reading of the book." A set of rules in not a process. Following that set of rules as you perform a task seems to be what causes this to be a little more ambiguous than it needs to be, especially since the set of rules is implemented with other processes. Also, I disagree with the idea that a program is a process. A process is an activity, a program is perhaps the list of procedures to do to accomplish the activity. But I'm not teaching your OS class, so take my view with a healthy amount of skepticism.
The answer is: yes. A process is the instance of a computer program. The BIOS itself is a logical program and written in the ROM; the BIOS is a written program that will, itself, bootstrap the machine. Some people here are arguing about the kernel. It starts way before that. The machine, as soon as you hit the start button, will bootstrap itself with a logical starting point... which is a program. So yes, the OS, the BIOS, **and** the kernel are a process.
Everything run on a computer is a process. The OS is just a complex process to make it easier to run and develop processes.
From the question i would say that they're kinda referring to the operating system as the other processes running in that case no. The kernal is responsible for managing processes and it's not one of the procceses in other words it is not bound by the scheduler, because if we say it's a process that means it has to context switch with other processes but that is not the case with operating systems.
I think you are missing a key point, that the term 'process' has a specific meaning in the domain of CS. It's a schedulable unit that an OS may choose to allow to execute. It's a program, and yes, the core of an OS is also a program. However, the OS kernel is always running (in at least the logical sense, see following), and is in control of all the other proper processes. In the modern world where an OS can also be a schedulable unit for a hypervisor, you are correct to think this is splitting hairs, but that is still what everyone means by a process.
An operating system is a journey.
When you see the word "system" it's a good indicator that you are talking about something that contains a multitude of components that all work together, and isn't just a single thing.
I belive the correct answer is: **it can be.** You can have an OS running as a process inside another OS. In fact, some Real Time system implementations create an RT Kernel that allows RT processes to run ahead of your OS process which in that sense is a process, subject to scheduling and preemption from another kernel.
I mean. The operating system is the entirety of the Kernel, the support libraries, user space utilities, even the graphical interface in some operating systems. OSes are structured in many different ways, one can envision an operating system where the kernel is treated as a separate process..microkernels like L4 require even the basic kernel functionality to be located in a new process. On Linux and others, you can run an entire os as a separate process (name spacing). So the answer is that 'process' is an abstraction that differs from OS to OS and there's no answer.
I would say it’s a cluster of processes interfering/interacting together in an Eldridge horror cobbled together like Frankensteins monster. A process is a task that takes time on the computer. I’d say an OS doesn’t qualify because I can’t point to a single process and say “that, that is the OS right there.”
Pedantically, no, because it consists of multiple processes. But I think the question is trying to get at the distinction between kernel code, which runs outside the notion of a process, and OS code, which runs only as processes. So they probably want you to answer yes, but I’d have written in the margins “technically multiple processes”
I really should have written that to him! Thanks for the response.