title: Is the Operating System a process?
body: <p>I am just now learning about OSes and I stumbled upon this question from my class' lecture notes. In our class, we define a process as a program in execution and I know that an OS is itself a program. So by this definition, an OS is a process.</p>
  
  <p>At the same time processes can be switched in or out via a context switch, which is something that the OS manages and handles. But what would handle the OS itself when it isn't running?</p>
  
  <p>Also if it is a process, does the OS have a process control block associated with it?</p>
  
  <p>There was an older question on this site that I looked at, but I felt as if the answers weren't clear enough to really outline WHY the OS is/isn't a process so I thought I'd ask again here.</p>