HOWTO: Kill an Application in KDE. EveryJoe

I like to pretend that this doesn’t happen on my GNU/Linux box, but it does. Every now and again, an application locks up and it won’t close for me.

The good news is that GNU/Linux handles this stuff pretty well and it’s a trivial matter to get rid of the offending application.

When within KDE, pressing the Ctrl-Esc key will bring up the KDE Process Table. This bad boy lists all of the running processes. Killing one is as simple as highlighting it and clicking the Kill button. As long as you own the process (which you likely do if you started it), you can kill it.

Unlike Windows, two things will happen when you kill an application. First it will actually terminate. It will, I swear. It won’t hang around on your screen for another 30 minutes with the hard drive spinning madly. Second, the rest of your system will remain stable and you can continue to use it. Incredible, but true. The kicker panel won’t disappear, the system won’t lock up, icons will remain where they are.

Bizarre, eh?

http://www.thegadgetblog.com colbert

there’s a way to restart the app if it is needed.

1. type : ps -ef | grep {app name}
2. find out the process ID
3. type : kill -HUP {process ID}
http://www.newlinuxuser.com Jon

Excellent, thanks Colbert!
http://www.alexsingleton.com/techblog/ Alex

I wonder if there a similar thing in Gnome? I’ve just started using Ubuntu Linux 5.10, which defaults to Gnome, but I’ve had to resort to the command line to kill applications – not my idea of user-friendly!
http://www.newlinuxuser.com Jon

Hey Akex:

I did some Googling and there appears to be an application called the Gnome Session Properties that will provide this capability. It doesn’t appear to have a Kill button, but the Remove button seems to do the same thing.

I don’t know how you launch it, but the application name appears to be gnome-session. Is there a ‘run’ box in Gnome? If not, you can likely run it from the command line. But hey, if you’re at the command line then you may as well just kill it there. Maybe you can find it by digging around in the menus.

Any Gnomers out there who can help us out?

Gnome Session Properties: http://www.fifi.org/doc/gnome-session/html/session/C/
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http://whistler.thetechvision.com Ibrahim Mohammad

I have been using kde for months, but just yesterday i decided to check out how much has gnome changed, well this gnome sessions thing can be accessed from Desktop>Preferences>More Preferences>Sessions
Now a window opens up and u have to select the current session tab. Hmmm, now how can these gnome developers expect me to reach there when a software on my pc freezes, there must be a simpler way. Funny there is no hotkey to be found for that in the gnome user guide.
http://www.newlinuxuser.com Jon

Thanks Ibrahim,

That does seem really odd that there’s no shortcut to the Gnome session manager.

Can it be run from the command line?
http://whistler.thetechvision.com Ibrahim Mohammad

‘gnome-session-properties’ is the command to run it but you still have switch to the ‘Current Session’ tab. The keyboard shortcuts in preferences doesnt support adding a new action, so how would I create a hotkey for it?
Gnome is very easy to use for inexperienced users, but lacks several features used by power users. Still I really like gnomes default panel arrangement.
http://www.newlinuxuser.com Jon

Good to know, thanks.

Your observation that Gnome is lacking power-user features is shared by a large group of people. I don’t take sides in the KDE/Gnome wars because I think people should use whatever works best for them, but that complaint it common amongst the KDE supporters (or rather, the anti-Gnomers).
donkeyofdarkness

You can also use xkill. Just type xkill at the terminal and then click the window you want to kill.