The Ctrl+Alt+Del of Linux?

BigBadBeef

BigBadBeef

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I do a lot of tinkering. For whatever application that does not have a linux alternative, I try to get it running on Linux. And that means crashes and freezes. Crashes in and of itself do nothing, but the freezes lock the system up completely. Is there an option to "murder" the hung process on linux, like a windows task manager?

I already have a resource monitor together with the "vitals" gnome extension, but I cannot access it, seeing how everything is frozen. I suppose I am looking for the "Ctrl+Alt+Del" of Linux!
 


I dont think there's a ctrl-alt-delete in Linux that functions like Windows, although in Gnome, you might be able to get something like a resource monitor to pop up if you setup the custom shortcut... if you're just trying to kill a process, you can use something like the killall command in the terminal to kill the process.

To get into a terminal, if you cant open through a GUI, you might be able to get to a tty session (ctrl+alt+f1-f6) and kill the process from there.
 
BigBadBeef said:
I do a lot of tinkering. For whatever application that does not have a linux alternative, I try to get it running on Linux. And that means crashes and freezes. Crashes in and of itself do nothing, but the freezes lock the system up completely. Is there an option to "murder" the hung process on linux, like a windows task manager?

I already have a resource monitor together with the "vitals" gnome extension, but I cannot access it, seeing how everything is frozen. I suppose I am looking for the "Ctrl+Alt+Del" of Linux!
Click to expand...
Ctrl+Alt+Del on a Linux system will reboot it.

It's been my experience running Linux for a long time that most freezes are associated with either Firefox or a Nvidia GPU. Sometimes the DE can play a roll too.

Try killing the process like TheProf suggested-

What application are you running that doesn't have a linux alternative?
 
Some distros have Ctrl+Alt+Delete working other don't
Some of the also have Ctrl+Alt+Backspce (which will take you to the login screen)
For instance they both work on Kubuntu 22.04. And I would assume other ubuntu based distros also.
 
It depends on the desktop. I like MATE. Many people say it's too big and heavy.
But then they complain because their deskktop doesn't have all the bells and whistles the heavier ones do.

1644857500463.png


There is something called MATE System Monitor. You can kill processes here.

1644857581727.png


But for me. I like the CLI.

ps -ef | grep firefox

30035 20913 0 08:46 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox -contentproc -childID 108 -isForBrowser -prefsLen 9781 -prefMapSize 248970 -jsInitLen 279340 -parentBuildID 20220209170533 -appDir /usr/lib64/firefox/browser

kill 30035 ( or if necessary, kill -9 )
 
kc1di said:
Some distros have Ctrl+Alt+Delete working other don't
Some of the also have Ctrl+Alt+Backspce (which will take you to the login screen)
For instance they both work on Kubuntu 22.04. And I would assume other ubuntu based distros also.
Click to expand...
Well, it would be faster than a hard restart...
 
BigBadBeef said:
Is there an option to "murder" the hung process on linux, like a windows task manager?
Click to expand...
You can run the kill command in the terminal - example VLC is hung -
Code: 
sudo killall vlc
That command ends any process with the name of vlc - or you can use xkill - in the terminal type in
Code: 
xkill
then click on the hung app
 
BigBadBeef said:
but the freezes lock the system up completely
Click to expand...

Beef, can you just clarify that? Do you mean that the whole session is locked up, or just the application that encountered the problem?

Cheers

Wizard
 
wizardfromoz said:
Beef, can you just clarify that? Do you mean that the whole session is locked up, or just the application that encountered the problem?

Cheers

Wizard
Click to expand...
Oh, uh, basically, it either freezes the screen or I get a black screen. I can't get the super key to respond to launch a resource manager, or tab out into the desktop. Occasionally I can get it to show me the "stopped responding" notification, but forcing it to quit does nothing.

At this point I would like to point out, that it is a consequence of my own tampering of trying to get stuff working on linux which was originally meant for windows. Native Linux apps work without any issues whatsoever!
 
Thanks mate. I should have asked too if the events freeze the keyboard response.

I have to sign off imminently, but I'm trying to establish for our other Helpers whether you can actually issue commands or punch magic keys and so on.

See ya

Wiz
 
If it were me, while this is an interesting subject, I'd resolve the issues of freezing and black screens.

For example, disable hardware acceleration in your browser to see if the problems go away.
 
KGIII said:
For example, disable hardware acceleration in your browser to see if the problems go away.
Click to expand...

Academic, if the freeze includes keyboard functionality.

Once we know that information, steps can be better offered.


Wiz
 
I've found freezes to be of such various types that some of them can be unfrozen, but some cannot.
In relation to using the SysRq keys, it's worth noting from the kernel docs in the sysrq.rst file:
What is the magic SysRq key?
It is a 'magical' key combo you can hit which the kernel will respond to
regardless of whatever else it is doing, unless it is completely locked up.
Click to expand...
which implies a dependency on the type of lock up.
If no press on the keyboard makes a difference, powercycling reboot is the option.
It's possible to configure ctrl_alt_bksp key combination in X to kill the X server since the default in X is "DontZap".
If the user can get to a console with Cntl+Alt+(F2 ...) then the kill command can kill either the offending program or X itself.

Interactive and interprocess GUI software can be so complex that no guarantees of "never freeze" can be confidently made.
Freezing of non-GUI terminals however, is very rare in my experience. I can't recall last time that happened for me.
 
wizardfromoz said:
Academic, if the freeze includes keyboard functionality.
Click to expand...

Speaking of academics...

Curiously, I recently encountered someone freezing with Firefox, who still had access to TTY, and I suggested the HA thing. It was the first time I'd seen it with FF.

Yeah, I have no idea when FF first had issues with HA. I've so far only found the one case and 'twas on the Lubuntu discourse. I should probably spin up a box with a dedicated video card and do some testing.
 
Actually, now that I think about it, the thing is that they keyboard doesn't really freeze. Right now, I've only tried closing it using the super key and getting into the vitals gnome extension resource monitor to close it. Though sometimes is unsuccessful and does pretty much nothing.

I have Located another keyboard combo - Alt+Space. Will try it next time something crashes, But I am going to have to find something else to mess with since I fixed whatever was crashing the things I tinkered with before! ^.^
 
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