Is "kill" in Terminal the same as "Quit" in the Finder?

[cpjakes]

Just wondering if you kill a process or application from Terminal, is that as clean as exiting from File -> Quit in the application itself?

cpjakes

[DNH]

kill is a bit more like force quit. it will quit the application without saving, or exiting cleanly.

[mms]

It's also different becase it can kill any processes, including some that can't be quit from the Finder (like the Dock). File-->Quit is only for applications. So it's closer to Force Quit but more than that.

Try the Unix command "top" to see the processes that are currently running. Those are all of the ones that can be "killed" with the process number.

[MacBandit]

exit and ctrl-x are more like quit in the finder.

[cpjakes]

My specific instance of needing this are with Remote Desktop. I use it between my laptop and my tower, which are usually on different floors of the house. I can't control one if it has RD open, so I usually ssh and kill it from there. I suppose that kill/force quit is safter under OS X vs. OS 9, but are there any options with ssh/terminal to exit cleanly (i.e. - like File->Quit)?

cpjakes

[MetallicPenguin]

Wht happened to the stop command, you used to be able to say "stop [process]" and it would instantly freeze that process. It was cool. I figured it out, you have to change the default thing from "bin/bash" to "bin/tcsh" like it used to be I think.
Is there any reason it changed I should be aware of?

[Santiago]

You can execute command-line AppleScript to tell programs to quit politely. For example:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by MetallicPenguin
Wht happened to the stop command, you used to be able to say "stop [process]" and it would instantly freeze that process. It was cool. I figured it out, you have to change the default thing from "bin/bash" to "bin/tcsh" like it used to be I think.
Is there any reason it changed I should be aware of?

Nope Apple just changed it to Bash probably because that's the accepted and most commonly used client in the Linux world.

I changed mine back to TCSH the day I got Panther. You can also run a client from within another just by typing the name. For example if you are using Bash and you want to use TCSH just type in at the prompt and you will be in TCSH within BASH. To get out of it type exit. To get out of BASH as well type exit again.

[cpjakes]

Originally posted by Santiago
You can execute command-line AppleScript to tell programs to quit politely. For example:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'

That's my new favorite Terminal trick... Thanks Santiago!

cpjakes