'kill' didn't kill XDarwin after using MacGimp.

[chemistry_geek]

Yesterday I was using MacGimp to edit some photos and when I was finished I quit MacGimp and XDarwin (OroborOSX-0.8preview3). I left the room for a while and returned and noticed that LoadInDock was pegged at 100% and ThermoInDock was 90°F (normal CPU temp is 75°F for my computer). I started a terminal session and typed 'top -u' and XDarwin (process 531) was taking between 75% to 85% of the CPU time. I typed 'kill 531' and nothing happened, it kept running. I typed it several more times with no success. Why didn't 'kill' kill XDarwin? I have never seen this happen. I finally su'd to root and 'shutdown now'. That took me to the console. Upon typing 'exit', the system seemed to go through the startup routine, I restarted anyway just to be sure none of the remains of that glitch were still present.

[BSDimwit]

When you type kill 531, you are basically asking nicely for to the computer to please shutdown the pid 531. Try Kill -9 841 and let your computer know who the superuser really is

[chemistry_geek]

Thank you for your help.

[dani++]

What 'kill' does is ask the OS to send a 'signal' to the process. To issue a 'kill' without parameters is to send a "nice" signal to the process telling it to shutdown. If the program is not crashed, it can cleanup any used resources and cleanly quit.

If it's crashed you can send it a TERM signal (-9), but there are other signals that could be of use to you and not be so drastic, the HUP signal comes to mind.

Read the 'man' pages and issue a 'kill -l' to list all available signals.


dani++