Quick Tip: Use xkill to Terminate Misbehaving Applications

Dmitri Popov

Productivity Sauce

Feb 19, 2010 GMT
Dmitri Popov

Don't you just hate it when an application stops working properly and you can't close it? Fortunately, there are a few different ways to terminate the misbehaving application, including the kill and killall commands. But my favorite method of stopping a stuck graphical application is to use the xkill utility. Press Alt+F2, type xkill, and press Run. Point the cursor to the application you want to terminate and press the left mouse button. This should kill the selected application. Easy, eh?

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Comments

  • Works a treat for me ......

    This keyboard shortcut for KDE works great in Kubuntu 9.10. Where do I find more of these gems for KDE ?

  • xkill

    For KDE users:
    Pressing the key combination Ctrl-Alt-Escape will change your mouse cursor into a special curosr (showing a X or a skull).
    When now clicking inside a application window it will terminate (as a result of the X server disconnecting tha application).

  • HUH?

    Point the cursor to what?

    Does not work for me.
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