ps Output Explained

Here is some sample output from ps -waux:

Listing 14.3. Example Output from ps
USER     PID %CPU %MEM  VSZ  RSS  TT  STAT STARTED      TIME COMMAND
root       1  0.0  0.0  528   72  ??  ILs  31Jan01   1:05.94 /sbin/init --
root       2  0.0  0.0    0    0  ??  DL   31Jan01  14:41.63  (pagedaemon)
root       3  0.0  0.0    0    0  ??  DL   31Jan01   2:38.47  (vmdaemon)
root       4  0.0  0.0    0    0  ??  DL   31Jan01   0:33.21  (bufdaemon)
root       5  0.0  0.0    0    0  ??  DL   31Jan01  79:52.61  (syncer)
root      24  0.0  0.0  208    0  ??  IWs  -         0:00.00 adjkerntz -i
root      80  0.0  0.1  916  320  ??  Ss   31Jan01   3:27.80 syslogd -s

Processes in the output from ps are sorted by PID rather than any of the reported metrics (unless you used one of the special sorting options described in the man page). You do get most of the same information that ...

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