Process Control Block
Everything on SkillVeris tagged Process Control Block — collected across the glossary, study notes, blog, and cheat sheets.
7 resources across 1 library
Interview Questions(7)
What is a Context Switch?
A context switch is the process of saving the CPU state of a currently running task and loading the saved state of another task, so a single CPU core can appea…
What Does the fork() System Call Do?
fork() creates a new process by duplicating the calling process almost exactly, returning twice — once in the parent with the child’s process ID, and once in t…
What is a Process Control Block (PCB)?
A Process Control Block (PCB) is the kernel data structure that stores everything the OS needs to know about a process — its state, register values, memory map…
What are the Different Process States in an OS?
A process moves through a small set of states — new, ready, running, waiting (blocked), and terminated — and the OS scheduler transitions it between them based…
What is a Light-Weight Process (LWP)?
A light-weight process (LWP) is a kernel-schedulable entity that acts as a bridge between a user-level thread library and the kernel, letting many user threads…
What Are the Process Scheduling Queues in an OS?
An operating system tracks processes through several distinct scheduling queues — the job queue, the ready queue, and one or more device (I/O) queues — and a p…
Context Switch vs Mode Switch: What Is the Difference?
A mode switch is the CPU transitioning between user mode and kernel mode privilege levels while staying within the same process, whereas a context switch is th…