A running instance of a program is called a process. A program stored in the hard disk or pen drive is not a process. When that stored program starts executing, then we say that process has been created and is running.
Let's very briefly understand the Linux operating system boot-up sequence:
- In PCs, initially, the BIOS chip initializes system hardware, such as PCI bus, and display device drivers.
- Then the BIOS executes the boot loader program.
- The boot loader program then copies the kernel in the memory and, after basic checks, it calls a kernel function start_kernel().
- The kernel then initializes the OS and creates the first process called init.
- You can check the presence of this process with the following ...