[Explained] Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

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markfilipak
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[Explained] Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

=== Summary Explanation ===
Task Manager 1.0.1 has 4 context menu choices for a running task:
'Terminate'
'Stop'
'Kill' and
'Priority' (6 choices)

'Terminate' gives a gentle nudge to the running task to try to get it to quit running. Essentially, 'Terminate' asks the task to quit running, thereby giving the task every opportunity to save work in progress. On its way out of the system, the task releases the RAM (random access memory - chip memory as opposed to disk memory) assigned to it back to the system (and hence to the memory pool).

'Stop' suspends the running task but leaves it intact in RAM. For tasks that have been suspended, the 'Stop' context menu choice is replaced by a 'Continue' choice which, if chosen, allows the running task to resume. Note that any input enqueued to a task while it is suspended is not thrown away but is processed when the task is continued.

'Kill' cuts the running task's head off. It abruptly aborts the task and returns the RAM assigned to the task back to the memory pool, therefore, the task has no opportunity to do anything. Specifically, work in progress is not saved.
=== End of Summary Explanation ===

Please excuse such a primitive question. It appears that the documentation is only available in Hungarian ...really.

Task Manager 1.0.1 has 4 context menu choices for a running task:
'Terminate'
'Stop'
'Kill' and
'Priority' (6 choices)

What's the difference between 'Terminate' & 'Stop' & 'Kill'?

Thank You.

Mark.

PS: I have more problems, but it's probably not a good idea to post multiple problems. I will post more when I submit this problem. - M.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Buzzsaw
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by Buzzsaw »

The wonder of Google...
MtnDewManiac
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by MtnDewManiac »

Buzzsaw wrote:The wonder of Google...
Yeah, I'm still wonderin' :roll: . The text at your link discusses kill with about 296 (slight exaggeration) modifiers. I didn't see where it mentioned how kill compares to stop and terminate (or even mentions them at all, unless I skimmed over them).

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MDM
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If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
markfilipak
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

Thank you, guys. Pissing on electric fences can be thrilling...

I remember "Abort, Retry, Fail?" Perhaps "Terminate, Stop, Kill?" is the MI6/CIA equivalent, eh?
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by Buzzsaw »

unless I skimmed over them
You skimmed over them. On the page I linked to, I find:
SIGKILL - The SIGKILL signal forces the process to stop executing immediately. The program cannot ignore this signal. This process does not get to clean-up either.

SIGTERM - This signal requests a process to stop running. This signal can be ignored. The process is given time to gracefully shutdown. When a program gracefully shuts down, that means it is given time to save its progress and release resources. In other words, it is not forced to stop. SIGINT is very similar to SIGTERM.

SIGSTOP - This signal makes the operating system pause a process's execution. The process cannot ignore the signal.
RichardH

Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by RichardH »

What's the difference between 'Terminate' & 'Stop' & 'Kill'?
Start with the first, Terminate.
If that doesn't do the job, go to the next level, then the next.
"kill 9" is not as disruptive/destructive as "kill 15"

If none of those work, then
hold the power switch for about 5 seconds and reboot; after saving any data, if possible.

There is also the program, xkill, run from a terminal that will kill whatever you click on.
Dangerous, but effective.
run xkill --help before trying it.

There do exist definitions.
They do have different meanings.
I'd have to google them also and then read a bunch. :)
markfilipak
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

RichardH wrote:Start with the first, Terminate...
Good information, Richard. Thanks for posting.

When others have given up and gone for the power switch, I have often been able to get Windows to properly shut down as follows (...and I wonder if there's the equivalent for Linux):

Terminate the Windows graphical shell:
'Task Manager' > 'Processes' tab > 'explorer.exe' > 'End Process' button.

Relaunch the graphical shell:
'Task Manager' > 'File' > 'New Task (Run...)' > (opens "Create New Task")
'Create New Task' > 'open:' [__explorer__] > 'OK'

Now, shut down normally.

Is there a similar thing in Linux ...perhaps shutting down & then restarting 'x-session-manager'?
shengchieh

Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by shengchieh »

Buzzsaw wrote:The wonder of Google...
IMHO this is not a helpful reply for a newbies (OP has les than 50 posts). Post a search link (including search term) and instruct the person to search first next time.
Many newbies are from window world where you just call tech support if you have a problem. Teach them how to search and spend 15-20 minutes before posting.

Sheng-Chieh
markfilipak
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

shengchieh wrote:
Buzzsaw wrote:The wonder of Google...
IMHO this is not a helpful reply for a newbies (OP has les than 50 posts). Post a search link (including search term) and instruct the person to search first next time.
Sheng-Chieh,

This newbie DID search first. I searched for
"Task Manager" Terminate Stop Kill
Kindly try it yourself. The results are not helpful.

(If someone tells me to do a search, implying I'm lazy or stupid, I tell them to F-OFF.)

PS: You know, most Linux people could use an attitude adjustment.
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by all41 »

the electic fence analogy is hilarious--I saw a youtube compilation on electric fence
shocks where someone actually did that.

Mark--this is from the Mate System Monitor help file regarding terminate stop and kill.
This is very similar to XFCE Task Manager:

To End a Process
To end a process, perform the following steps:
Select the Processes tab to display the process list.
Select the process that you want to end.
Choose Edit ▸ End Process, or click on the End Process button.
By default, a confirmation alert is displayed. For information about how to display or hide the confirmation alert, see Processes.
Click on the End Process button to confirm that you want to end the process. System Monitor forces the process to finish normally.
This is the preferred way to stop a process.
To Terminate a Process
To terminate a process, perform the following steps:
Select the Processes tab to display the process list.
Select the process that you want to terminate.
Choose Edit ▸ Kill Process.
By default, a confirmation alert is displayed. For information about how to display or hide the confirmation alert, see Processes.
Click on the Kill Process button to confirm that you want to terminate the process. System Monitor forces the process to finish immediately.
You usually terminate a process only if you cannot end the process normally as described in To End a Process.

Had any goulash lately?
Last edited by all41 on Fri Jan 16, 2015 11:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Everything in life was difficult before it became easy.
RichardH

Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by RichardH »

@markfilipak

The next level is to google for Alt+SysReq R,S,E,I,S,U,B.
or, go here: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key"

It's effectiveness depends on it's having been compiled into the kernel.
LMint seems to have it, at least the last: Alt+SysReq+b does reboot my system.
which is usually preferable to hitting the big red switch. (from the old days.)
markfilipak
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

You know, I regretted writing that most Linux people could use an attitude adjustment almost immediately. When I returned to change it, I was too late.

Hello all41,

You seem to have explained a 2-choice scenario: 'End' & 'Kill/Terminate'...
all41 wrote: To End a Process
To end a process, perform the following steps:
Select the Processes tab to display the process list.
Select the process that you want to end.
Choose Edit ▸ End Process, or click on the End Process button.
By default, a confirmation alert is displayed. For information about how to display or hide the confirmation alert, see Processes.
Click on the End Process button to confirm that you want to end the process. System Monitor forces the process to finish normally.
This is the preferred way to stop a process.
So is this the same as XFCE's 'Terminate'? ...Don't answer that. It was a rhetorical question.
all41 wrote: To Terminate a Process
To terminate a process, perform the following steps:
Select the Processes tab to display the process list.
Select the process that you want to terminate.
Choose Edit ▸ Kill Process.
By default, a confirmation alert is displayed. For information about how to display or hide the confirmation alert, see Processes.
Click on the Kill Process button to confirm that you want to terminate the process. System Monitor forces the process to finish immediately.
You usually terminate a process only if you cannot end the process normally as described in To End a Process.
Hmmm... "Click on the Kill Process button to confirm that you want to terminate the process". That's about a clear as mud if 'kill' and 'terminate' are 2 differing things. The only way that makes sense is if 'kill' and 'terminate' are the same thing. I'm not sure how this translates to XFCE's 'Terminate', 'Stop', and 'Kill'.

I mean, doesn't 'Stop' sound less severe than 'Terminate'. Granted that 'Kill' leaves very little doubt, but I still don't know how they impact the system. For example, if I'm running a picture viewer and it locks up, and I have to 'Kill' it to get the OS back, should I reboot immediately? What about if I only have to 'Terminate' the picture viewer? Probably can just continue without reboot, eh? But what about if I have to 'Stop' the picture viewer. Should I reboot then? ...

... It's almost enough to make you want to club a penguin, isn't it?
all41 wrote:Had any goulash lately?
I believe I'll take tequila.
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

So, you smart and experienced Penguins, which running task manages the arbiter? That's the one that's probably the one to 'reboot' when the system locks up. It is PROBABLY the shell program.

Anyone know its name? I'll do some experimenting that we may all profit from, but you gotta' get me closer than the almost-150 tasks I have running now (especially important since I have no idea what 149 of them are).
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

Buzzsaw wrote:SIGKILL - The SIGKILL signal forces the process to stop executing immediately. The program cannot ignore this signal. This process does not get to clean-up either.

SIGTERM - This signal requests a process to stop running. This signal can be ignored. The process is given time to gracefully shutdown. When a program gracefully shuts down, that means it is given time to save its progress and release resources. In other words, it is not forced to stop. SIGINT is very similar to SIGTERM.

SIGSTOP - This signal makes the operating system pause a process's execution. The process cannot ignore the signal.
Hey, Buzz...

Is that even the right order?

What you wrote (obviously from most severe to least severe) would imply that from least severe to most severe is: 'Stop' - 'Terminate' - 'Kill'.
But the choices in the XFCE 'Task Manager' are: 'Terminate' - 'Stop' - 'Kill' - 'Priority'.

Does the XFCE 'Task Manager' context menu have the order wrong, or does your documentation (above) have the order wrong?

(It's not such a slam-dunk when there's no documentation, is it?)
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by Buzzsaw »

Is that even the right order?
It's in the order I found them in on the web page. Kill signals have no inherent order. If a program is not responding, I would use SIGTERM first, then SIGKILL if SIGTERM doesn't work. But this isn't a law.
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by Buzzsaw »

IMHO this is not a helpful reply for a newbies
Uh?

The answer was in the page in the link. What's unhelpful about that?
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by Buzzsaw »

Is there a similar thing in Linux
Look at the second answer down on this page.
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by markfilipak »

[regarding how to shut down Linux when it freezes] Buzzsaw wrote:Look at the second answer down on this page.
Thank you sooooooooooo much, Buzz. This should be the first thing in every introduction to Linux, but I've never seen it before.

Blind Shutdown:
My previous (WinXP) laptop's display started flickering one morning a couple of weeks ago. I immediately backed up all my data (incremental backup, so didn't take much time). Then I ran 'mozbackup' so I could move my 'Firefox' & 'Thunderbird' profiles to my new laptop which I'd purchased a few months back. While 'mozbackup' was running, the display went black (backlight burned out). Since I'd rehearsed blind shutdown many times, I knew what to do: When the disk light turned off (indicating 'mozbackup' had finished), I hit 'Ctrl'+'Esc', paused a few seconds, then 'Ctrl'+'U', paused a few seconds more, then 'Ctrl'+'U' again. The machine shut down in an orderly manner. I took out the disk drive, turned it into a USB drive (using Apricorn DriveWire hardware), and transferred everything into my new laptop. I accomplished in a few minutes what the average user would take spend days and $-hundreds for at the Geek Squad. The savings paid half the cost of the new laptop, mostly because I planned ahead and knew how to do a blind shutdown.

Thank you for the help, Buzz. I WILL pass it on.
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by Buzzsaw »

REISUB isn't a perfect solution.

When I used to use MPlayer, it sometimes froze the computer completely. Even the clock froze. REISUB had no effect in this situation. Holding the power button worked though.

Moral of the story: don't use MPlayer.
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Re: Task Manager: Terminate or Stop or Kill?

Post by MtnDewManiac »

Buzzsaw wrote:
unless I skimmed over them
You skimmed over them. On the page I linked to, I find:
SIGKILL - The SIGKILL signal forces the process to stop executing immediately. The program cannot ignore this signal. This process does not get to clean-up either.

SIGTERM - This signal requests a process to stop running. This signal can be ignored. The process is given time to gracefully shutdown. When a program gracefully shuts down, that means it is given time to save its progress and release resources. In other words, it is not forced to stop. SIGINT is very similar to SIGTERM.

SIGSTOP - This signal makes the operating system pause a process's execution. The process cannot ignore the signal.
Yeah, I saw those. I just didn't see where SIGKILL was the same as Kill, SIGTERM was the same as Terminate, and SIGSTOP was the same as Stop. I guess that, if I had known that, the web page would have been useful (but, in that case, I wouldn't have needed it :roll: ). I could have assumed - after all... car, carbuncle, their both the same, right? Ohwaitaminute :lol: .
markfilipak wrote:My previous (WinXP) laptop's display started flickering one morning a couple of weeks ago. I immediately backed up all my data (incremental backup, so didn't take much time). Then I ran 'mozbackup' so I could move my 'Firefox' & 'Thunderbird' profiles to my new laptop which I'd purchased a few months back. While 'mozbackup' was running, the display went black (backlight burned out).
That happened to me. Well, not the WinXP part, but the backlight reaching EoL on a laptop. I used a very bright flashlight close to the screen, and was able to see it well enough to finish what I was doing. (It was not an enjoyable experience, but it worked.)

Regards,
MDM
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If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
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