Under Windows XP you can hit 'ctrl-alt-del' to bring up the task
manager to view running applications and processes and see which
applications are not responding (so you can shut them down).

What's the right way to do this under Debian Linux?

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Paul Martin <ironheadjones@verizon.net>:
>  Under Windows XP you can hit 'ctrl-alt-del' to bring up the task
>  manager to view running applications and processes and see which
>  applications are not responding (so you can shut them down).
>
>  What's the right way to do this under Debian Linux?

Run "top" or "ps" ("ps fax | less").  Note the process ID (PID) of the
process, then you can "kill -HUP $PID" where $PID == the number.

Simpler:  "ps fax | grep $WHATEVER_YOU'RE_LOOKING_FOR", then "kill -HUP
$PID".

If it's still there after -HUP, try kill -9.

Your user login ID won't be able to kill root owned processes, only
your own.  Instead, you'll have to login as root to affect them.  Be
careful with this.  You can always "/etc/init.d/$BLAH start" them
again, but never *expect* things to die gracefully.  Hope, yes.
Expect, no.

Eg., what happens when you shoot mysqld in the head[*]?  I'd expect
corrupted tables.  Perhaps mysqld can repair them when it restarts,
but do you want to bet on that, with your valuable data?


[*] I've actually worked for large corps that do this regularly.
Instead of gracefully shutting down the db, they just shoot it in the
head and rely on recovery routines to fix whatever corruption that
caused.  Why?  I've no idea.  Perhaps it's related to watching Windows
crash regularly, and it seems able to drag itself back to life, so why
not a db?

--
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(*)    http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling           Linux Counter #80292
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http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

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On Tue, 30 May 2006 00:44:54 GMT, "s. keeling" <keeling@spots.ab.ca>
wrote:

>[*] I've actually worked for large corps that do this regularly.
>Instead of gracefully shutting down the db, they just shoot it in the
>head and rely on recovery routines to fix whatever corruption that
>caused.  Why?  I've no idea.  Perhaps it's related to watching Windows
>crash regularly, and it seems able to drag itself back to life, so why
>not a db?

That's so funny!  My corp's "tech support" people (generally, someone
from the mail room) come right up to our Dell desktops and yank the
power cable right out of the back of the PC!  It's so much fun
watching this! To its credit, XP almost always comes back to life,
none the worse.

Thanks for your answer.  So there's no GUI applet in Linux to
accomplish the kill feature as you've explained how to do at the
command line?

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On 2006-05-30, Paul Martin <ironheadjones@verizon.net> wrote:
> Under Windows XP you can hit 'ctrl-alt-del' to bring up the task
> manager to view running applications and processes and see which
> applications are not responding (so you can shut them down).
>
> What's the right way to do this under Debian Linux?

Applications > System Tools > KSysGuard

is my favorite way 

--
ps aux
in a terminal
lets you see a lot

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Paul Martin wrote:
> Under Windows XP you can hit 'ctrl-alt-del' to bring up the task
> manager to view running applications and processes and see which
> applications are not responding (so you can shut them down).
> What's the right way to do this under Debian Linux?

You can configure ctrl-alt-del from the console keyboard to do
whatever you want in Debian (and LINUX).

Now, since that will act regardless of whether or not the current
virtual console is running X or not, or even whether or not anyone is
logged into any virtual console when it's used, one would be well
advised to be appropriately careful with what it does, how, and under
what circumstances - particularly as it will execute with superuser
("root") privileges when executed via /etc/inittab.

I haven't investigated what other possibilities may exist if
ctrlaltdel isn't set in /etc/inittab (the documentation seems
potentially a bit ambiguous on this point - e.g. is it simply passed
along, or is it still caught and SIGINT sent to init, or both, or
neither?)

references:
inittab(5)

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On Mon, 29 May 2006 20:02:28 -0500, Paul Martin wrote:

>
> Thanks for your answer.  So there's no GUI applet in Linux to accomplish
> the kill feature as you've explained how to do at the command line?

On my ubuntu/gnome desktop:

System->Administration->System Monitor

It's pretty similar to a window's ctrl-alt-del.  I'm not sure if it's the
same on debian though.

Dan

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Paul Martin <ironheadjones@verizon.net>:
>  On Tue, 30 May 2006 00:44:54 GMT, "s. keeling" <keeling@spots.ab.ca>
>  wrote:
> 
>
>  That's so funny!  My corp's "tech support" people (generally, someone
>  from the mail room)

That's even funnier.  Has it (IT?) really sunk that low?  Wow.


--
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(*)    http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling           Linux Counter #80292
- -    Spammers! http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling/emails.html
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

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Paul Martin wrote:


> Thanks for your answer.  So there's no GUI applet in Linux to
> accomplish the kill feature as you've explained how to do at the
> command line?

If you are running KDE, there is. It is called System Guard. Right click on
the panel and add applet to panel. The rest is self-explanatory.

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