linux-kernel - Re: init_task belongs to "process 0" or "process 1"?

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Message-ID: <4B43602F.1050202@nortel.com>
Date:	Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:52:15 -0600
From:	"Chris Friesen" <cfriesen@...tel.com>
To:	Nobin Mathew <nobin.mathew@...il.com>
CC:	Shivdas Gujare <shivdas.tech@...il.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: init_task belongs to "process 0" or "process 1"?

On 01/05/2010 01:32 AM, Nobin Mathew wrote:
> init_task is the head of doubly linked list which holds all
> task_structs in the system. init_task is again the task_struct for
> process 0/swapper/idle task. This process is created manually (I meant
> to say not by copy_process() calls). Manually means they are static
> structures defined in the code (see INIT_TASK, init_mm, init_fs etc).
> There will be multiple idle task if there is more than 1 cpu core.
> Idle task is the one which is scheduled if there is no other task
> ready for scheduling.
> 
> Init task is process 1 which is initially a kernel thread created from
> process 0 using copy_process(), then it does an execv() (/sbin/init )
> or similar one to create the normal process init.
> 
> Name given to process 0 is swapper.
> .comm           = "swapper"

Oddly enough, this name makes no sense anymore.  Why don't we call
process 0 "idle"?

Chris
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