Following up my own post:

>> For some time now I notice that "ps" gives me some strange output
>> after some time. When I first invoke it after a reboot, most of

[explaining that "ps ax" displays some processes in brackets
 and without parameters]

I think the most reasonable answer until now came from Havard
Eidness who explains, that on other OS'es a process displayed in
brackets in the process list done with ps -ax means that this
process is swapped out. I just checked my local Linux box and it
appears this is true, because after some time there are some
processes displayed in brackets on Linux, too. So it seems like
this is it. Any comments on this?

Blaz