If a process is shown in ps then it is running. There is no concept of an 'idle' process. If a process is not necessary, then youe database administrator needs to determine what is not needed. A process may be waiting for someone to type on a keyboard but if you were to remove the memory used by the process, the process will crash.
Processes that are waiting for some event will be lowered in priority and eventually be deactivated automatically and paged out to your swap area but only if your system is running short of RAM. Note that if you are trying to solve error messages regarding out of memory, this is very likely not related to memory usage but instead due to limits set in your kernel that need to be increased, or perhaps increasing swap space. What if the output of:
>Bill: If a process is shown in ps then it is running.
I wouldn't exactly say that. It could be sleeping or waiting. My definition of running is using the CPU. All you can tell if it shows in ps(1), is he's not dead, Jim. :-)
> Dennis: All you can tell if it shows in ps(1), is he's not dead, Jim. :-)
While I'm sure you weren't addressing me :-) I would add that zombies show in 'ps' as "defunct". Of course, they don't have any user or kernel space allocated, and they are doomed to await their Grim Reaper.
