Process and Thread States: Idle Hands
The idle state indicates that the kernel is in the middle of initializing a process/thread run environment. The thread can't be placed on a run queue, yet but soon it will be ready to compete with other threads for scheduling consideration. The amount of time a process/thread spends in the idle state is very short, and it is rare to see this state reported by a ps command. The common process table states, p_stat, are:
| SUNUSED = 0 | table entry unused (on the free list) |
| SWAIT = 1 | entry abandoned |
| SIDL = 2 | intermediate state during creation |
| SZOMB = 3 | intermediate state during deconstruction |
| SINUSE = 5 | entry in use |
Prior to the advent of kernel threads, a process could also be in the state SRUN, waiting on an active run ...
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