A background process is a computer process that runs "behind the scenes" (i.e. in the background) and without user intervention. Typical tasks for these processes include logging, system monitoring, scheduling, and user notification.
On a Unix system, a background process or job can be further identified as one whose group ID differs from its terminal group ID. This type of process is unable to receive keyboard signals from and typically will not send output to its parent terminal. This more technical definition does not distinguish between whether or not the process can receive user intervention.
Although background processes are typically used for purposes requiring few resources, any process can be run in the background, and even though the process is running in the background, where it can't be seen, it behaves like any other process.
Read more about Background Process: Example, Launch & Resumption On Unix, Daemon, Smartphones
Famous quotes containing the words background and/or process:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and of which these are among the transitory expressions.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)