From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Nov 29 18:22:18 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA03326 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Sun, 29 Nov 1998 18:22:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA03318 for ; Sun, 29 Nov 1998 18:22:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id MAA08906; Mon, 30 Nov 1998 12:51:52 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id MAA00577; Mon, 30 Nov 1998 12:51:49 +1030 (CST) Message-ID: <19981130125149.A431@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 12:51:49 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Jonathan Chen Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Curious about what happens during boot. References: <19981130113148.H831@freebie.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Jonathan Chen on Mon, Nov 30, 1998 at 03:10:06PM +1300 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Monday, 30 November 1998 at 15:10:06 +1300, Jonathan Chen wrote: > On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Greg Lehey wrote: > > [...] >> The first process that UNIX starts is process 0 (strangely enough). >> Nowadays it doesn't do much more than spawn process 1, which is called >> init. > > Hmm. If the process 1 is called `init'; was there ever a name for > process 0? Oh yes, there still is. But it differs from one system to another. On FreeBSD, it's called `swapper' and is responsible for wholesale removal of a process image to backing store. This goes back to the pre-virtual memory versions of UNIX, when swapping was the only way to get a process out of memory. Other versions of UNIX use it for other purposes and give it other names. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message