Advanced Linux Programming

3. Processes

A RUNNING INSTANCE OF A PROGRAM IS CALLED A PROCESS. If you have two terminal windows showing on your screen, then you are probably running the same terminal program twice—you have two terminal processes. Each terminal window is probably running a shell; each running shell is another process. When you invoke a command from a shell, the corresponding program is executed in a new process; the shell process resumes when that process completes.

Advanced programmers often use multiple cooperating processes in a single application to enable the application to do more than one thing at once, to increase application robustness, ...