All modern operating systems are able to run many programs at the same time. For example, a typical Linux server might include a Web server, an email server, and probably a database service. Each of these programs runs as a separate process. What do you do if one of your services stops working? Here are some handy command-line tools for managing processes.

One of the best features in Linux is the way you can control processes from the command line, so if you have an application that locks up your GUI, you can always SSH over from another machine and just kill the offending process.

A true wizard doesn’t just run processes, a true wizard knows how to communicate with those processes through signals to stop, restart, and even kill processes. This may sound like arcane and obscure knowledge, but if you follow along, you’ll be managing your processes like an adept in no time.

There are many different GUI based process monitors available for Linux systems. It seems that each desktop environment or window manager has its own solution. The one common process monitor is the command line terminal based top command.

It occurred to me that I was running 3 CPU-bound processes on the same machine and that the processes might be stepping on each other's toes. It's possible that if the server is running on core 4 one second and the producer is running there the next, the level 1 cache of that core could be ruined for the server the next time it ambles over there.

GNU/Linux is bursting with information about the system on which it runs. The system's hardware and memory, its Internet link and current processes, the latest activity of each user -- all this information and more is available. And, despite such desktop tools as the KDE Control Center or GNOME's System Monitor, the easiest place to get all the system information available is still the command line.

slay is a command line utility used for killing all the processes used by a particular User. Some users will leave with out logingout, some kid users will use heavy games and stay it in background. slay will kill all the processes for such conditions.

Usually when we talk about programs for editing images we think to graphic programs such as The Gimp or photoshop, but they are not the only alternative.

htop is an improved version of top, a complex process viewer which allows to visualize processes in real time, see memory and CPU consumption, send signals to processes, renice processes, and sort them by various options. It makes use of colors and you can also scroll horizontally and vertically to see the full names of the running processes.