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Asked: 2026-05-12T10:43:56+00:00

This comment confuses me: kill -l generally lists all signals. I thought that a

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This comment confuses me: “kill -l generally lists all signals”. I thought that a signal means a quantized amount of energy.

[Added] Please, clarify the (computational) signal in Unix and the physical signal. Are they totally different concepts?

[Added] Are there major differences between paradigms? Is the meaning the same in languages such as C, Python and Haskell? The signal seems to be a general term.

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  1. Editorial Team

    I cannot believe that people are not comparing things such as hardware and software or stressing OS at some points.

    Comparison between a signal and an interrupt:

    The difference is that while
    interrupts are sent to the operating
    system by the hardware, signals are
    sent to the process by the operating
    system    , or by other processes. Note
    that signals have nothing to do with
    software interrupts, which are still
    sent by the hardware     (the CPU itself,
    in this case). (source)

    Definitions

    1. process = a program in execution, according to the book below

    Further reading

    1. compare the signal to Interrupts and Exceptions

    2. Tanenbaum’s book Modern Operating Systems

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