Operating Systems
Chapter 3: Processes
Dr. Marwa Elseddik
Lecturer, Department of Robotics and
Intelligent Machines - College of Artificial
Intelligence, Kafrelsheikh University
2025
Operating Systems 1
Chapter 3: Processes
• Process Concept
• Process Scheduling
• Operations on Processes
• Interprocess Communication
Operating Systems 2
Process Concept (1/3)
Program vs. Process
• A program is a passive entity such as the file that
contains the list of instructions stored on a disk always
referred to as an executable file.
• A program becomes a process when an executable file is
loaded into the memory and then becomes an active
entity.
Operating Systems 3
Process Concept (2/3)
• The fundamental task of any operating system is the
process management.
• Processes include not only a text but also include a set of
resources such as open files and pending signals.
Processes also contain internal kernel data, processor
state, an address space, and a data section.
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Process Concept (3/3)
• OS must allocate resources to processes, enable sharing
of information, protect resources, and enable the
synchronization among processes.
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Process Elements (1/2)
• Segments of a process represents the following
components:
➢ Text Section: the program code. This is typically read-only,
and might be shared by a number of processes.
➢ Data Section: containing global variables.
➢ Heap: containing memory dynamically allocated during run
time.
➢ Stack: containing temporary data.
• Function parameters, return addresses, local variables.
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Process Elements (2/2)
• Process in Memory
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Process Control Block (PCB) (1/2)
• For better control of processes,
operating systems need to
consider their dynamic behaviors.
• Each process is represented in the
OS by a Process Control Block
(PCB).
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Process Control Block (PCB) (2/2)
• Process Control Block (PCB) (1/3)
➢ Process identification information
▪ Process identifier: numeric identifiers represent the
unique process identifier
▪ User identifier: the user who is responsible for the job).
▪ Identifier of the parent process that created this process.
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Process Control Block (PCB) (2/2)
• Process Control Block (PCB) (2/3)
➢ Processor state Information
▪ Process state – running, waiting, etc
➢ Program counter
▪ location of instruction to next execute
➢ CPU registers
▪ contents of all process-centric registers
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Process Control Block (PCB) (2/2)
• Process Control Block (PCB) (3/3)
➢ CPU scheduling information
▪ priorities, scheduling queue pointers
➢ Memory-management information
▪ memory allocated to the process
➢ Accounting information
▪ CPU used, clock time elapsed since start, time limits
➢ I/O status information
▪ I/O devices allocated to process, list of open files
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Process State (1/3)
• As a process executes, it changes state
➢ new: The process is being created
➢ running: Instructions are being executed
➢ waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur
➢ ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor
➢ terminated: The process has finished execution
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Process State (2/3)
• Diagram of Process State
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Process State (3/3)
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Process State (3/3)
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Process State (3/3)
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Process State (3/3)
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Process State (3/3)
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Process State (3/3)
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CPU Switch From Process to Process
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Process Scheduling (1/2)
• Job queue – set of all processes in the system
• Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main memory,
ready and waiting to execute
• Device queues – set of processes waiting for an I/O device
• Processes migrate among the various queues
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Process Scheduling (2/2)
Operating Systems 22
Schedulers (1/2)
• Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler)
➢ Selects which process should be executed next and allocates
CPU.
➢ Invoked frequently (milliseconds) → (must be fast).
• Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler)
➢ Selects which processes should be brought into the ready
queue.
➢ Invoked infrequently (seconds, minutes) → (may be slow).
➢ Controls the degree of multiprogramming.
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Schedulers (2/2)
• Medium-term scheduler
➢ Can be added if degree of multiple programming needs to
decrease
➢ Remove process from memory, store on disk, bring back in
from disk to continue execution: swapping
Operating Systems 24
Interprocess Communication (1/2)
• Processes within a system may be independent or
cooperating
• Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other
processes, including sharing data.
• Cooperating processes need interprocess communication
(IPC)
• Two models of IPC:
➢ Shared memory
➢ Message passing
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Interprocess Communication (2/2)
(a) Message passing. (b) shared memory.
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Dr. Marwa Elseddik
Operating Systems 27
