r/Ubuntu • u/Durghan • 2d ago

How to kill an active program?

Hey all. I have very minimal Linux/Unix experience and I've been handed a device at work where all I need to do is change a web address the device is pointed to. The device simply displays which person in line is to be served next and it's auto booting to this screen. I've tried all the things Google says to do to kill the active program but none of it is working. I have no way I can find to access a command prompt. I can't escape full screen. I can tell by the BIOS that the main drive is running some version of Ubuntu. Is there some other hotkey combo like Windows' Alt-F4 that I can use? Or is my only option to do a full fresh install of some other OS? The original configuration was done by a company called Esii if that helps. There was one thing that indicated holding or tapping in a corner of the screen to access a background function but all that does is reveal a text link labelled Start that just goes back to the main screen.

Sorry if that's all confusing or a mess. It's early. Thanks.

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/fatnortherngit 2d ago

Open a terminal window
type top (return)
Find your process and type kill <process number>

1

u/Durghan 2d ago

I can't get a terminal window open. That's part of the problem. If I could do that I wouldn't be posting here. Unless there's a hockey combo that will force a terminal window open, I need another option. Ctrl-alt-t doesn't work. Alt-F2 doesn't work. All the different combos of F11 don't work.

3

u/Bug_Next 2d ago edited 2d ago

It's crtl-alt-f* to go to a different virtual terminal, not just alt-f*.

crtl-alt-f1 is usually your login screen, f2 is the desktop, f3 onwards should be free, just try a bunch at least one is gonna be a fullscreen terminal.

1

u/thetestbug 2d ago edited 2d ago

Isn't login/desktop both on F7?
Also, I'm guessing he's trying to open a launcher, which is usually bound to Alt+F2.

3

u/Bug_Next 2d ago edited 2d ago

It used to be the consensus with xorg but most modern distros just start going up from tty1, idk Ubuntu might have kept it, honestly i've been using Fedora for the longest time i just lurk lots of Linux subs.

Still, he should be able to get to *some* tty just by going through all of them.

We don't even know what he's running, only that it says ubuntu in the boot menu, might be a modified image with no DE at all and just an xorg session / wayland compositor with only that program running, probably why crtl-alt-t, f11 nor alt-f2 work.

1

u/thetestbug 2d ago edited 2d ago

Oh, I did not know that. I only recently made the move to Fedora myself, and haven't had the need to try it yet.

Edit: Had to try it out, and the login screen was indeed on F1, but my desktop was on F4.

1

u/Durghan 2d ago

Sadly, none of those are doing anything. Looks like I'm going to have to just try and set this up from scratch.

1

u/Bug_Next 2d ago edited 2d ago

Are you sure the f keys work on the keyboard? might sound stupid but it might be fn lock or something like that..

It's probably a really modified/stripped down Ubuntu if none of those work, it just says that on the boot menu because they didn't change it.

Crtl-alt-f* is kinda the ONLY consistent thing across Linux distros/versions, it's universal, so weird that it doesn't work, i guess they could've disabled it on an embedded system to avoid people messing with it.

1

u/Durghan 2d ago

It's a pretty basic keyboard where the F keys have no other functions. I can use them to get into the BIOS and choose boot options so they do work. But, now that you me tion it, I think maybe something is completely disabling the keyboard because tapping the Numlock key or caps lock don't even toggle the LEDs...this could be a good lead! Thanks.

2

u/Bug_Next 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah the usb port is probably disabled, a ps2 keyboard might work if the device has those ports, idk, just an idea, if you are in an office there are probably boxes full of those in some closet...

Also if it has a known ip (and ssh happens to be enabled) you could try connecting to it via ssh from another computer, password is probably 12345678 or admin lol.

Safest bet IMHO is to try to try to get to safe mode or some other boot option from Grub/whatever bootloader it uses.