Multitasking

Multitasking is the ability of a computer to share all of its resources among many different, currently running programs.  In many of the earliest designed operating systems only one task could be completed at a time.  A user would have to input both data and a program or operation to run and the computer would complete the operation at hand and would wait for the next operation to be loaded by the user.  The computer could only handle a single task at a time. However, as hardware became more efficient computer were able to complete more tasks quickly.  This led OS designers to create the idea of scheduling.  Designers figured that if a computer has all of these vast resources, let us write some rules for the OS to follow and then let it decide when and how each program should be allocated resources. 

To explain this more clearly, let’s look at the computer processor's processing ability and time as if it were a pie.  In early computers, the entire pie was given to one operation or process at a time.  When that process was finished, the pie could be given to another process.  Today, we slice the pie into pieces and give a piece to each process, sometimes giving more of the pie to a process for a bit. Multitasking has greatly increased the perceived speed of a computer and allows the user a more effective experience. It is important to note that a single processor can still only complete a single operation at a time. However, instead of waiting until a process receives its total allocation of the pie, it begins to allow another process to begin fulfilling its requests.

To initiate multitasking in the Linux terminal interface, one would use the & after a command. This will give back the control of your terminal window. For example, using the & after mozilla will give you your prompt back.

eos% mozilla &
eos%