Thierry Chatelet wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote : > > If the process won't die then likely it is a zombie. > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_process > > > > Zombies cannot be killed because they are already dead. The most > > common reason they haven't left yet is because their parent process > > hasn't executed wait(2) upon them to receive their exit status. In > > which case the problem is a bad parent. > > > > Find the parent process id and kill the parent. In the case of zombie > > processes it is the bad parent that is really the problem. > > True, zombie cant be be kill as they alredy dead by definition! > Well, top gives me 2 zombies. So I should be able to kill at least 1 > vlc instance. But is there any way to get the name of > zombies?... Well, strange thing no??? Zombie processes have whatever name they always have had. Being a zombie does not change their name. But it is the name of the parent that is import. Or rather it is the process id of the parent that is important. Find the parent process and kill it. ps -efH | less UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD rwp 29470 29468 0 Jan28 pts/30 00:00:00 bash rwp 29579 29470 0 Jan28 pts/30 00:01:00 foo rwp 29472 29579 0 Jan28 pts/30 00:01:00 [<defunct>] Process 29472 is a zombie. It is process 29579 that is the bad parent. Kill 29579 (in this example) and the zombie will be reaped. Note I just made that example up from memory and it probably differs from what you are actually seeing and is for illustration only. Here is longer explanation that might help: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/faq/part3/section-13.html Bob
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