Process Concept, States, and Transitions
Learn what a process is and how it moves across ready, running, blocked, and other states.
Process and Thread Management
Learn how programs run as processes, how threads improve responsiveness, and how the CPU is scheduled.
Learning objectives
- - Explain process life cycle and state transitions
- - Use PCB and context switch concepts
- - Differentiate process vs thread
- - Apply major CPU scheduling algorithms
Topics in this chapter
22 min
PCB and Context Switching
Understand how OS stores process metadata and swaps CPU execution safely.
Threads and Multithreading Models
Compare processes and threads, then map one-to-one, many-to-one, and many-to-many models.
Scheduling Goals and Scheduler Types
Learn scheduling objectives and roles of long-term, short-term, and medium-term schedulers.
CPU Scheduling Algorithms (FCFS, RR, SJF, SRTN, Priority)
Apply algorithm rules and compute waiting/turnaround using Gantt charts.
Question bank for this chapter
Summer 2023Q2(A)
Define process, thread and context switching.
Summer 2023Q2(B)
Describe Process Control Block (PCB) with diagram.
Summer 2023Q2(B) OR
Describe Process Life Cycle with diagram.
Summer 2023Q2(C)
Calculate average waiting time using FCFS and SJF for burst times 21, 3, 6 and 2, all arrival time 0. Draw Gantt chart.
Summer 2023Q2(C) OR
Calculate average turnaround and waiting time for Round Robin (q=3) and Priority Scheduling for five processes with given burst and priorities.
Winter 2023Q2(A)
Explain PCB with block diagram.
Winter 2023Q2(B)
Discuss context switching in OS.
Winter 2023Q2(B) OR
Differentiate thread and process.
Winter 2023Q2(C)
Explain SRTN in short and solve with processes P0..P3 with arrival 0,1,3,5 and burst 10,6,2,4. Draw Gantt chart and compute average TAT/WT.
Winter 2023Q2(C) OR
Explain SJF in short and solve with processes P0..P3 with arrival 0,1,3,5 and burst 10,6,2,4. Draw Gantt chart and compute average TAT/WT.
Summer 2024Q2(A)
Implement Round Robin (q=3) for five processes (same arrival) and find average turnaround and waiting time.
Summer 2024Q2(B)
Explain process state transitions with diagram.