Question

In Operating Systems, what is the difference between a process and a thread?

Q: Answer-In Operating Systems, what is the difference between a process and a thread?

A process has its own address space, file handles, and system resources process communication IPC is complex and slower. A thread is a unit of CPU execution within a process threads share the processs memory and resources, making communication faster and context-switching cheaper. Multithreading allows concurrent operations e.g., a banking application can process multiple transaction requests simultaneously using threads.

A A process is faster than a thread in execution; a thread is slower and more resource-intensive as compared to a process

B A process handles I/O operations; a thread handles only CPU computations

C A process runs in user space and can handle user applications only; a thread runs only in kernel space and can handle application programs only

D A process is an independent program in execution with its own memory space; a thread is a lightweight unit of execution within a process sharing the same memory space

E A process and a thread are identical terms used interchangeably in modern OS

Practice Next