AlgoPlus//structures / process-states
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Process States

Every process moves through a five-state lifecycle, driven by the scheduler, I/O, and interrupts.

Running
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Ready queue
0
Waiting
0
Legend
Ready
Running
Waiting (blocked)
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In a nutshell
A running program passes through a fixed set of life stages. It is created (New), admitted to a line of programs waiting for the CPU (Ready), and eventually given the CPU to actually run (Running). From running it may pause for slow work like a disk read (Waiting), get bumped off when its time slice ends (back to Ready), or finish (Terminated). With one CPU core, only one process runs at any instant.
Ready
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A process is a program in motion, tracked by its PCB. It cycles New → Ready → Running, and from Running it can block on I/O (Waiting), be preempted by a timer (back to Ready), or finish (Terminated). Only one process runs per core at a time.
Key terms
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