gistfile1.txt

% ~ » file $( which ps )                                                       
/bin/ps: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=223afbeee68e45e833292074803d95d0530a731d, stripped

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% ~ » apt-file search -x '^/bin/ps$'                                           
procps: /bin/ps

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% ~ » aptitude show procps                                                     
Package: procps                          
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Multi-Arch: foreign
Version: 2:3.3.9-9
Priority: important
Section: admin
Maintainer: Craig Small <csmall@debian.org>
Architecture: i386
Uncompressed Size: 551 k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15), libncurses5 (>= 5.5-5~), libncursesw5 (>=
         5.6+20070908), libprocps3, libtinfo5, lsb-base (>= 3.0-10), initscripts
Recommends: psmisc
Conflicts: pgrep (< 3.3-5), w-bassman (< 1.0-3)
Breaks: guymager (<= 0.5.9-1), open-vm-tools (<= 2011.12.20-562307-1), xmem (<=
        1.20-27.1)
Provides: watch
Description: /proc file system utilities
 This package provides command line and full screen utilities for browsing
 procfs, a "pseudo" file system dynamically generated by the kernel to provide
 information about the status of entries in its process table (such as whether
 the process is running, stopped, or a "zombie"). 
 
 It contains free, kill, pkill, pgrep, pmap, ps, pwdx, skill, slabtop, snice,
 sysctl, tload, top, uptime, vmstat, w, and watch.
Homepage: http://gitorious.org/procps

Tags: admin::monitoring, implemented-in::c, interface::commandline,
      interface::text-mode, role::program, scope::utility, uitoolkit::ncurses,
      use::checking, use::monitor, works-with::software:running

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% ~ » man 1 ps

 EXAMPLES
        To see every process on the system using standard syntax:
           ps -e
           ps -ef
           ps -eF
           ps -ely
 
        To see every process on the system using BSD syntax:
           ps ax
           ps axu
 
        To print a process tree: