Quoting Jim Reid,

> The wchan is the kernel virtual address of some data structure related
> to the event the process is waiting on. Usually the high-end bits of
> this address are stripped off because (a) they're the same for any
> kernel VA and (b) there's no space for an 8- or 16-digit hex string in
> the output of ps. So, the numeric value printed *is* of use. You can
> use your debugger and the kernel's symbol table to work out what that
> event is. In fact, that's more or less what ps does when it prints out
> the wchan as strings like "nfs_dnlc" or "select" - really helpful,
> that last one.

Sure, it's of use to the person actually running the kernel, but much
less useful to *other* people trying to help out. How am I supposed
to interpret a VA in his kernel.. That's why I asked for more information.

- Frank