In article <009801c52fbf$4dfad3b0$6ea8a8c0@acervfr9okf50t>,
Brad du Plessis <bduplessis@commissionaires.ab.ca> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'm running NetBSD-2.0_STABLE and would like to know what the "swapped out" 
>flag means as seen in a process listing. I was running a process that I 
>tried to kill (SIGTERM) and it didn't respond. I then tried a SIGKILL 
>(kill -9) and after a couple seconds I did a process listing and found the 
>ps flags were 'DW'. From the ps manpage the W means the process is swapped 
>out, does it make sense that a process having just received a SIGKILL would 
>be in this state?

A process can get swapped out anytime. It could be the case, that it was
swapped out before you kill -9'ed it. Do you know why it is hanging in
'D' (short term uninterruptible sleep)? What wait channel is it stuck on?
ps -axl should be able to tell you.

christos