From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932171AbWDUARo (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:17:44 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932174AbWDUARo (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:17:44 -0400 Received: from ms-smtp-02.nyroc.rr.com ([24.24.2.56]:48126 "EHLO ms-smtp-02.nyroc.rr.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932171AbWDUARn (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:17:43 -0400 Subject: Re: [PATCH] Rename "swapper" to "idle" From: Steven Rostedt To: Hua Zhong Cc: Linux-kernel , akpm@osdl.org, torvalds@osdl.org In-Reply-To: <4448161D.9010109@gmail.com> References: <4448161D.9010109@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:17:35 -0400 Message-Id: <1145578655.671.39.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.4.2.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 16:15 -0700, Hua Zhong wrote: > This patch renames the "swapper" process (pid 0) to a more appropriate name "idle". The name "swapper" is not obviously meaningful and confuses a lot of people (e.g., when seen in oops report). > > Patch not tested, but I guess it works. :-) Usually a patch not tested will never be accepted no matter how trivial it is, unless you had to modify a driver to match a new syntax or something and you don't have the device. Did you at least compile it? > > Signed-off-by: Hua Zhong > > diff --git a/include/linux/init_task.h b/include/linux/init_task.h > index 41ecbb8..5e3ca4f 100644 > --- a/include/linux/init_task.h > +++ b/include/linux/init_task.h > @@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ #define INIT_TASK(tsk) \ > .cap_permitted = CAP_FULL_SET, \ > .keep_capabilities = 0, \ > .user = INIT_USER, \ > - .comm = "swapper", \ > + .comm = "idle", \ > .thread = INIT_THREAD, \ > .fs = &init_fs, \ > .files = &init_files, \ > - Yes, swapper is because of historical reasons. In most text books for Unix, the initial process on boot up is called "swapper". Probably because those early Unix systems had this process handle the swapping (as kswapd does today). By doing this, it will probably make Linux out of sync with all the text books on Unix, so it really is Linus' call. -- Steve