From: Nasser M. Abbasi on
coming from windows to linux, I find that I miss the task-manager tool
on windows.

I am running fedora 13, and I like the linux tools below the desktop
(shell commands) and all the other command line development tools, and
that is the main reason I am moving to linux.

But I am finding that sometimes some desktop applications hangs and
something goes wrong. On windows, when this happens, I start the
task-manager, find the process or the application, and kill it.

For example, now I have firefox froze on me on fedora, I was in the
middle of saving a page as web page.

I know I can use ps -a, find the process id, and use kill, but sometimes
that does not kill the process, and now when I did ps -a, it did not
even list firefox

ps -a | grep -i firefox

even thought I started it, and I can see it there froze on the desktop.

The point is, it would be much easier for new users if a task-manager
like GUI tool is there (ofcourse, one must be root to run it?).

I also have another GUI application which is hanged. Also xsane hangs up
when coming up searching for devices, and kill does not seem to work on it.

Is there such a thing on linux that new linux users could use?

thanks
--Nasser
From: Keith Keller on
On 2010-06-01, Nasser M. Abbasi <nma(a)12000.org> wrote:
>
> For example, now I have firefox froze on me on fedora, I was in the
> middle of saving a page as web page.
>
> I know I can use ps -a, find the process id, and use kill, but sometimes
> that does not kill the process, and now when I did ps -a, it did not
> even list firefox
>
> ps -a | grep -i firefox
>
> even thought I started it, and I can see it there froze on the desktop.

Please note that a task-manager-like tool won't solve this or the other
problems you describe.

> The point is, it would be much easier for new users if a task-manager
> like GUI tool is there (ofcourse, one must be root to run it?).

If you have KDE, you can try ksysguard. From playing with it for about
five minutes it looks like a very fancy version of top (plus what seem
like some gkrellm-like features). You don't need to be actively running
KDE in order to use ksysguard.

> I also have another GUI application which is hanged. Also xsane hangs up
> when coming up searching for devices, and kill does not seem to work on it.

Again, a task manager won't help you with this. Have you tried kill -9?
This should be considered a last resort, but if you've already tried
kill (which by defaults sends SIGTERM, or kill -15) then you basically
have no other real options anyway.

--keith


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From: The Natural Philosopher on
Keith Keller wrote:
> On 2010-06-01, Nasser M. Abbasi <nma(a)12000.org> wrote:
>> For example, now I have firefox froze on me on fedora, I was in the
>> middle of saving a page as web page.
>>
>> I know I can use ps -a, find the process id, and use kill, but sometimes
>> that does not kill the process, and now when I did ps -a, it did not
>> even list firefox
>>
>> ps -a | grep -i firefox
>>
>> even thought I started it, and I can see it there froze on the desktop.
>
> Please note that a task-manager-like tool won't solve this or the other
> problems you describe.
>
>> The point is, it would be much easier for new users if a task-manager
>> like GUI tool is there (ofcourse, one must be root to run it?).
>
> If you have KDE, you can try ksysguard. From playing with it for about
> five minutes it looks like a very fancy version of top (plus what seem
> like some gkrellm-like features). You don't need to be actively running
> KDE in order to use ksysguard.
>

Gnome has system monitor.


>> I also have another GUI application which is hanged. Also xsane hangs up
>> when coming up searching for devices, and kill does not seem to work on it.
>
> Again, a task manager won't help you with this. Have you tried kill -9?
> This should be considered a last resort, but if you've already tried
> kill (which by defaults sends SIGTERM, or kill -15) then you basically
> have no other real options anyway.
>
Reload the GUI.
Or reboot the machine.

> --keith
>
>
From: Frank Steinmetzger on
Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

> coming from windows to linux, I find that I miss the task-manager tool
> on windows.
>
> I am running fedora 13, and I like the linux tools below the desktop
> (shell commands) and all the other command line development tools, and
> that is the main reason I am moving to linux.
>
> But I am finding that sometimes some desktop applications hangs and
> something goes wrong. On windows, when this happens, I start the
> task-manager, find the process or the application, and kill it.

In KDE, press Ctrl+Esc, in Gnome, you can add your own shortcut via
settings->Shortcuts to open gnome-monitor.
--
Gruß | Greetings | Qapla'
Lieber BILD-Zeitung als gar kein Klopapier.

From: Keith Keller on
On 2010-06-01, The Natural Philosopher <tnp(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Keith Keller wrote:
>>
>> Again, a task manager won't help you with this. Have you tried kill -9?
>> This should be considered a last resort, but if you've already tried
>> kill (which by defaults sends SIGTERM, or kill -15) then you basically
>> have no other real options anyway.
>>
> Reload the GUI.
> Or reboot the machine.

Real men don't reboot! ;-)

Killing X may end up simply orphaning the rogue process, making it a
child of init. It's worth a shot, of course, but the inevitable
question will be "what happens when the process doesn't die after I kill
X?" At that point you consider kill -9, or if frustrated enough a
reboot.

--keith

--
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