Are swapped out processes really swapped out?

From: Mark (mark_at_ziptree.com)
Date: 02/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 10:46:44 +0000

When I run ps, it shows apache httpd processes in square brackets.
According to the man page that means they're swapped out to disk. But
what's wierd is I see this immediatelly on launching apache, and even
when I induce heavy load on the server. I can't believe these processes
are all swapped out to disk permanently. Any ideas? I'd like to force
them to stay in RAM if possible to reduce latency when a user hits the
site after long periods of inactivity.

Thanks for any help,

Mark.
Here's the output from ps axu | grep "httpd\|mysql":

   607 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
--datadir=/var/lib/mysql
   635 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
   637 ? S 0:02 [mysqld]
   638 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
   639 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
   640 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
   641 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
   642 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
   643 ? S 0:05 [mysqld]
   644 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
   645 ? S 0:02 [mysqld]
18769 pts/1 S 0:00 mysql -u root -pxxxxxx
29085 ? S 0:01 [mysqld]
29307 ? S 0:01 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
29309 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29310 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29311 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29312 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29313 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29314 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29315 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29316 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29317 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29318 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29319 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29320 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29321 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29322 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29323 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29324 ? S 0:00 [httpd]
29327 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29328 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29329 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29330 ? S 0:00 [mysqld]
29333 pts/3 S 0:00 grep httpd\|mysql

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