Background Process

A background process is a computer process that runs behind the scenes and without user intervention. Typical tasks for these processes include logging, system monitoring, scheduling, and user notification. The background process usually is a child process created by a control process for processing computing task.

When referring to multitasking operating systems, the background is the place an active program is running, but not visible to the user. For example, you could have a program playing music, minimize the program and continue to listen to the music while browsing the Internet.

Note: A program does not need to be minimized to be in the background. If a window is not the active window, it is considered to be in the background.

    In Linux, a background process is any process started by the user that is running in a Linux environment background. To view your current running background processes, use the bg command. A background process should not be confused with a daemon, which is similar, but never requires any input from the user.