Applications that do not respond, close them easily

about unresponsive apps

In the next article we are going to take a look at how unresponsive applications can be closed in Ubuntu. While a user is using Ubuntu, one or more of the processes and applications may hang once in a while. If this happens, restarting the system or logging out is not always the best solution to quickly, easily and safely get rid of unresponsive applications and programs.

In the following lines we are going to see several possibilities, through which we can close applications or processes that do not respond or hang on your Ubuntu. We can do this using the graphical interface or the command line.

Close applications that are not responding in Ubuntu

Using Ubuntu System Monitor

As with the Task Manager Windows, Ubuntu also has a built-in utility to manage and work with them. This task manager will allow us kill, end, stop and resume processes in your system graphically and easily.

System Monitor Launcher

Once opened, in the tab "Processes”In System Monitor, you will be able to see all the processes that are currently running, including those that are not responding. To stop a process, all you have to do is right click on it and select the Kill option.

end a process on the system monitor

This option works very efficiently, but it is recommended that you first try to shut down the process using the Stop or End options.

Use the xkill utility

This utility can be used to kill an unresponsive program through the desktop. Most Gnu / Linux distributions have it installed by default. It also can run from terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) using the xkill command as follows:

xkill launched from terminal

After running the command, you will see that the mouse pointer will turn to a 'x'. All you have to do is move the pointer to the program that is not responding and click on it to close it.

Create a keyboard shortcut for xkill

The utility being undeniable xkill When it comes to removing crashing programs, it may be annoying for some users to open the terminal and then run the command. To avoid this nuisance, you can create a custom keyboard shortcut that runs the command. So users can see and use the pointer in the form of 'x'directly on the open windows on the desktop. To create this shortcut you just have to follow the following steps:

Open keyboard settings

device configuration in Ubuntu

You have to go to the Ubuntu configuration utility and access the keyboard settings, through the Devices tab.

Create a custom shortcut

Ubuntu keyboard setup

In the window in front of you, scroll down using the slider, until you see the button '+'. You will find it at the bottom of the list. Click that button to add a new custom shortcut. The dialog box will appear Add a custom shortcut. At this point write the following information:

Name: xkill
Command: xkill

After covering the above tables, click the Set shortcut button. This will allow you to set up a keyboard shortcut for the xkill command:

custom keyboard shortcut settings

Here press the key combination for your custom shortcut. For this example I use Ctrl + Shift + K as a shortcut, as this combination is not being used for any other purpose on my system. At this point, all that needs to be done is click the Add button. After this, the new keyboard shortcut is registered as a new custom shortcut.

X-shaped pointer to close apps

After all this, if you use the custom combination you just created, you will see the 'x'at the mouse pointer, ready to close some hung application.

Using the kill, pkill, and killall Commands

In the terminal, you can also find other ways to close unresponsive apps. This was already discussed in a previous article posted on this blog.


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  1.   Brenda ChessValencia said

    Kill