Final answer:
The parent process of a program started from the command line prompt is typically the shell or command line interpreter, followed by the init process or systemd process, and then the kernel.
Step-by-step explanation:
a. The parent process of your program is typically the shell or command line interpreter that you used to start the program. For example, if you used the Terminal app on Mac OS, the parent process would be the Terminal process.
b. The parent process of the shell or command line interpreter is typically the init process or systemd process on Linux and Unix-based systems. This process has a process ID of 1 and is responsible for starting and managing all other processes on the system.
c. The parent process of the init process is typically the kernel, which is the core of the operating system. The kernel handles low-level tasks such as memory management, process scheduling, and device I/O.