Linux from Zero #2: Understanding Processes, States, and Parent-Child Relationships

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The second installment of the 'Linux from Zero' series focuses on how to interpret process information using commands like 'ps' rather than simply memorizing them. By running a test process such as 'sleep 300', readers can examine key fields including PID, PPID, STAT, and ETIME to reason about what a system is actually doing. The article explains process states — S (sleeping), R (running), D (uninterruptible I/O wait), and Z (zombie) — and notes that a process stuck in D state typically signals a disk or storage issue. It also covers the parent-child process relationship, explaining how killing a parent process affects its children and how this same logic underlies container behavior. The series uses these concepts as a foundation for upcoming topics on Linux namespaces, cgroups, and container orchestration with Kubernetes.

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