Running Slack 12.2, KDE 3.5, Firefox 3.0.8. This seems to happen during firefox sessions. Once the problem happens the entire machine locks up and the hard drive starts thrashing. I end up having to power down the machine to get the system back up.

Ideally, I would like to be able to kill a process like Windows by using ctrl-alt-del, task manager, then end the runaway process. Can this be done in Slackware or does anyone have a answer to my locking up problem?

Thanks!
Shawn Anthony
ssanthony@yahoo.com

It sounds like your machine is swapping (memory is being written back and forth to the swap file). This explains the thrashing and the unresponsiveness.

1. Try pressing ctrl-alt-f6 simultaneously. This will take you to a text only console (slowly if the machine is swapping badly). You can log in there with your own user name and password.

2. Then, type 'top'. This will show you a text only task manager, with processes sorted by cpu-usage.

3. Look at the list and see if you can identify the process responsible for your bad experience, and kill it by pressing 'k'.

4. Then, type the process id (the number associated by the program in the leftmost column). Press 'enter'.

5. Choose via which signal you want to stop the process. The default is 15, if you want this, press enter. If you want to kill the process, type 9 and then enter.

Hopefully, this will solve your problem. You can quit the 'top' program by pressing 'q'. Help for the 'top program can be found by starting 'top' and then pressing 'h'.

You can close your console session by typing quit on the command line. Return to your graphical session by pressing "ctrl-alt-f7".

If you are struggling to get in, because your machine is very busy, killall can be an easier option than top and kill (providing that you know, in advance, the name of the process that you want to kill).

You'll have to have root magic to do this so you'd want to type something like:

I don't see why sudo or root rights are necessary. If you are the only user on the machine, chances are that the memory/cpu hogging process is yours, so you can kill it just like:
Secondly, Slackware doesn't add users to the sudo file/wheel group by default, so this will result in a warning rather than the expected result.

But, if you know which program is to blame (maybe after some unfortunate experience) then killall is the faster way.

That is all excellent advice, but there is also a KDE taskmanager that lets you kill processes. How to bring it up depends on your KDE config. For example if it is the copy of newer Windows keystrokes, just press <CTRL><ALT><DEL> and it will start the taskmanager.

Alternative to the above ones you can press alt+f2 and type xkill in box and hit enter.
you will have a mouse with cross sign. click on any window you want to close. it will close immediately.

Slackware default is Ctrl+Esc.


Default Slackware short cut is Ctrl+Alt+Esc. The click of death, skull and crossbones cursor. Press Esc again to get out of it.

Thanks for all the info. works like a charm.