Killing a process

Killing a process interrupts it and then terminates it.

Killing a foreground process

You can sometimes kill a process that is in the foreground by typing Control-c. To do so, press and hold down the Control key and then press c. There is no warning or exit message when you use this method.

Another way to kill a process is by first making its window active (click on the window to bring it to the top) and then pressing Meta-q. Your machine's Meta key may be called Alt or Meta, or it may have a small diamond on it. You'll have to experiment a bit to find out which works. Not all processes respond to this method.

Killing a background process

To kill a process that is already in the background, use the kill command, whose syntax is

kill %job_number or PID

That is, you type kill % and then the job number or PID. For example

unity% kill 22632
[1]    Terminated             oclock
unity%

Last modified July 20, 2004 by cawalker