In Linux, every program and daemon is a “process.” Most processes represent a single running program. Other programs can fork off other processes, such as processes to listen for certain things to happen and then respond to them. And each process requires a certain amount of memory and processing power. The more processes you have running, the more memory and CPU cycles you’ll need. On older systems, like my seven-year-old laptop, or smaller computers, like the Raspberry Pi, you can get the most out of your system if you keep an eye on what processes you have running in the background.
