How to invoke the Linux Terminal in LINUX when a process becomes unresponsive?
If a process becomes unresponsive in WINDOWS then we press "alt+ctrl+del" to invoke the task manager & then terminate the process.Is there any similar way to invoke the Linux Terminal so that we can end a process by the ‘kill’ command when it becomes unresponsive?Any help would be gladly accepted.
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Whether you are in an x-windows session or working at the console command line, an equivalent in Linux would be to select a new virtual terminal using the key sequence CTRL-ALT-F-Key.
For example, from the console, CRTL-ALT-F1 will open virtual tty1, if it has not been disabled by configuration. Once in the screen for the virtual terminal is displayed you can log in with appropriate permissions to use ‘ps’ to determine the process that you need to kill as you would normally do as indicated in your question. To return to the console use CTRL-ALT-F7.
For completeness, if you are at the command line you could begin a program by running it in the background, so you can do other things during it’s execution. If a program that is running, but which is not in the background, is stuck your first step should be to try CTRL-Z, to terminate it. If that fails try a virtual terminal.
As has been suggested, you could also access the system remotely if you have other systems on the network that could be used. Doing so, requires appropriate services, such as ’sshd’, be running in advance of the problem. Similarly, you should experiment with the virtual terminal feature in advance of a problem to assure that it has not been disabled and so you can see how it works.
hth
sure, but that depends on if you have an icon for your terminal program, or where the terminal program is located.
I have icons (and I keep multiple terminals open generally anyway becuase I work in the command line a lot), but occasionally of the whole PC is slow and I need to keill a process, I will ssh in to the unresponsive program form another PC on the network, and identify and kill the process.
Maybe that last one is your best bet if the desktop is not really responding…
You always have the option to reboot with a power cycle