Background

1. When referring to multitasking operating systems, background is the place an active program is running, but not visible to the user. For example, when listening to music while browsing the Internet your audio program is running in the background.

2. Background is also another way of describing the Microsoft Windows wallpaper.

3. 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.

Also see: Background thread, BG, Daemon, Foreground, Operating System definitions, Thread