First, ps aux
gives me a full listing of everything running on the system, including system processes. Did you mean ps ux
?
Second, you said that sshd
was the only user process running? What about bash
? What about ps
? That's a user process. The number of running user processes really has no reflection on how few system internals are running; that's why the call it a user process and not a system process.
Third, if sshd
is the only system process running, how does did the computer start up (init
), or deal with TTY connections (getty
or agetty
), or log system events (syslogd
and klogd
)? Truth is, there is a very specific reason for each system process and disabling or kill
-ing them can lead to a dumb computer, or a crashed computer.
Udev is pretty much always going to show up in ps
listings on any 2.6.xx system. With the move from Kernel 2.4 to 2.6, the udev subsystem is standard unless you compile your own kernel. If you compile udev support out, then you'll have to rely on an unchecked /dev
structure, which may cause problems.
If you're really looking to use your own minimalistic Linux install, use Damn Small Linux or Linux From Scratch and only install what you want.