Two strange processes

[Reinhold Rumberger]

On Tuesday 12 January 2010, Georgi Kourtev wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> Today I found something unusual for me in the System Activity
> list.
> 
> 1. dhclient process (don't have idea what is this) that is owned
> by root and is a zombie in terms of CPU usage.

That is the DHCP client and is necessary if you want to use dynamic 
configuration in your network. Is it really a zombie (suggesting a 
problem) or just not using any CPU (i.e. idle)?
see "man dhclient" for more info

> 2. init, also owned by root (don't have idea what is this either),
> that is stopped.

Init is the original process starting all other processes. It is not 
only normal, but *very* necessary. ;-)
see "man init" for more information

> Does anyone knows whether this is normal behaviour?  It seems to
> me that this was not the case some time ago.  BTW the status of
> these two does not change after reboot.

Be glad it doesn't... :-)

  --Reinhold