Except when Firefox IS just BOGGED DOWN and RUNNING the computer FLAT OUT servicing it’s own memory leaks…

Then this occasionally AWFUL program will sit there and do this crap of thrashing the disk cache for hours;

So the only thing that works then is hitting the power off button; otherwise nothing clicked on will come up for 1/2 an hour…

And getting into a terminal to kill off FF – yeah “Like When”.

I’d like a simple KEY command to just HALT all the running process’s like Ctrl Alt Del, so I could THEN go into System Monitor and kill off Firefox there….

You know that works like smashing my laptop with a big hammer on the CPU.

Someone else summed it up like this:

“Our problem is that its near impossible to kill processes whilst they are running amock (this would help, and could give gnome-system-monitor a better nice level too automatically). Microsoft has implemented this perfectly. If there are dodgy processes running, its always VERY easy to kill them. With us, you have to spend 15mins waiting for menus to open, etc. And then since gnome-system-monitor will run with low privileges, it will be quite unresponsive.”

This WORKS:

Alt-F2 to bring up run dialog, enter xkill then click on the app you want to terminate.

(that is easy I can remember that)

There are combinations of keys listed:

Putting the “System Monitor” and “Force Quit” applets on your tool bar / panel and then clicking on them.

Not tried by me:

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* CTRL + ALT+ F2 (get to a terminal, you can then run top/kill/pkill to discover and kill the offending process)
* ALT+ SYSRQ + R then CTRL + ALT+ F2 (as above, but first try to regain control of the keyboard)
* CTRL + ALT + Backspace (kills the graphic session and goes to a console, all graphical applications are terminated too)
* ALT+ SYSRQ + R then ALT + Backspace (as above, but first try to regain control of the keyboard)
* CTRL + ALT + DEL (reboot)
* ALT+ SYSRQ + R then CTRL + ALT + DEL (as above, but first try to regain control of the keyboard)
* ALT+ SYSRQ + R + S + U + B (forces a clean reboot even when the keyboard is not responding)

is from a wiki. SYSRQ is the print screen key on my keyboard. it may differ for you.

here is a good site with more answers to your question:

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/closing_down_gnu_linux_safely_with_sysrq+

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For the keyboard binding part: bind gnome-system-monitor to Ctrl+Alt+Del key combo.

gconftool-2 -t str –set /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_9 “Delete”
gconftool-2 -t str –set /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_9 “gnome-system-monitor”

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Try SHIFT+BACKSPACE. The caveat: All of your programs will close. But then, it would kill X.

Or another thing: Try pressing the X Button many times while the application does not respond. A popup window will appear asking you if you want to force kill the application or not. Just kill the application.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ctrl + alt + backspace

http://maketecheasier.com/4-ways-to-get-yourself-out-of-a-ubuntu-crash/2008/09/01

2) Restart ‘X’

If the whole system comes to a freeze and does not accept any keyboard or mouse input, try to restart ‘X’ by pressing ‘Ctrl + Alt + Backspace‘. This will kill all processes and log you out. If this works, it should bring you to the login screen again.

3) Use MagicSys Key to kill all processes

If the crash is so serious that Ctrl + Alt + Backspace have no effect at all, try pressing the MagicSysKey ‘Alt + SysRq + K’ to kill all processes. The MagicSysKey is a set of keyboard combination that allow the users to perform various low level commands regardless of the system’s state using the SysRq key. In case you are wondering where the SysRq key is, in most keyboard configuration, it is found under the Print Screen button. In some laptop configuration, you might have to press the ‘Fn‘ button to access the SysRq key.

In short, press Alt + SysRq (possibly together with the ‘Fn‘ button) + K to kill all processes.

4) If all the above fail…

Try this MagicSysKey combination. It will sure work.

Press and hold Alt + SysRq, then one by one, press and release the following characters in the respective order: ‘R’ ‘E’ ‘I’ ‘S’ ‘U’ ‘B’. The system will perform a series of tasks and finally reboot the computer, safely.

This method should be used only if all other methods fail. If you have difficulty in remembering the character sequence, just remember the opposite of ‘BUSIER’.

It’s not that I can wait it out, I leave my computer on for most of the time, and after coming back after several hours and try to open it it’ll pop up.

Anyone know why it does this or how to prevent it?

Dom

Thanks for bringing it up though!:)

I just wish I could use FF3 in Gentoo, FF2 is good but not as cool.

-Clinton