Process 0

Swapper

• The ancestor of all processes, created during the initialization phase of Linux by the start_kernel() function

• Initializes all the data structures needed by the kernel, enables interrupts, and creates another kernel thread

• After creating the init process, process 0 executes the cpu_idle() function, repeatedly executing the hlt instruction.

• Process 0 is selected by the scheduler only when there are no other processes in the TASK_RUNNING state.

• On systems with multiple CPUs, there is process 0 for each CPU.