[arcticmac]

according to process viewer (10.2.8), my system has about 5 processes named X11 who's status is "zombie"(all owned by root) I don't even have X11 open.

i've got two questions:
1. what's this zombie mode?
2. Why are there five listings of X11, owned by root, and still there, even though I'm not even running it?

[Chuckit]

zombie process

Definition: A zombie process is a process that has finished executing and will be deleted at a later time.

Why do zombie processes exist? When a process finishes it calls the exit system routine. The kernel then releases all system resources previously used by the process, but saves the exit status and process ID. The process is now in the zombie process state. The process remains a zombie process until its parent process checks the exit status and tells the kernel to completely delete the process.

[juanvaldes]

google is good "zombie process", second link.

"A zombie process doesn't react to signals because it's not really a process at all- it's just what's left over after it died. What's supposed to happen is that its parent process was to issue a "wait()" to collect the information about its exit. If the parent doesn't (programming error or just bad programming), you get a zombie. The zombie will go away if it's parent dies- it will be "adopted" by init which will do the wait()- so if you see one hanging about, check its parent; if it is init, it will be gone soon, if not the only recourse is to kill the parent..which you may or may not want to do. "

really, you can just ignore it as it's not causing any harm.