UNIX processes

A UNIX process is an instance of a running program.

Since UNIX is multitasking and multiuser, a typical UNIX system has lots of running processes.

ps shows information about running processes.

• ps only shows some information about your own processes
• ps aux (BSD) or ps -ef (SYSV) shows more detailed information about all running processes.
• There are lots of other ps flags, but unfortunately their usage and output is very operating system dependent.

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