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dscan99

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 10, 2004
137
0
Nashville, TN
Sorry for posting what is possibly a real stupid question.

In the unix wworld, I'm used to typing "ps -ef" to list all process information. However the terminal app on my iBook G4 does not seem to like -f (illegal operation). Can someone please tell me what the Mac equivalent is? And also what is the underlying Unix flavour being used on the G4s?

Also is killing (as in unix....) a process that's hung, recommended ??

Thanks :)
 

musicpyrite

macrumors 68000
Jan 6, 2004
1,639
0
Cape Cod
If you want to see all the process information just type 'top'.

Killing a hung application would be the same thing a using command+option+escape to quit something. Shouldn't cause a problem, unless your typing a paper and haven't saved it.
 

daveL

macrumors 68020
Jun 18, 2003
2,425
0
Montana
dscan99 said:
Sorry for posting what is possibly a real stupid question.

In the unix wworld, I'm used to typing "ps -ef" to list all process information. However the terminal app on my iBook G4 does not seem to like -f (illegal operation). Can someone please tell me what the Mac equivalent is? And also what is the underlying Unix flavour being used on the G4s?

Also is killing (as in unix....) a process that's hung, recommended ??

Thanks :)
'ps -ef' is the Unix System V version of the ps command. OS X is BSD Unix. You'd want something like 'ps aux'. If you are running Unix commands in the Terminal, you might to become familiar with the 'man' command, as in 'man ps'.
 

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5
Jun 6, 2003
12,110
77
Solon, OH
dscan99 said:
Sorry for posting what is possibly a real stupid question.

In the unix wworld, I'm used to typing "ps -ef" to list all process information. However the terminal app on my iBook G4 does not seem to like -f (illegal operation). Can someone please tell me what the Mac equivalent is? And also what is the underlying Unix flavour being used on the G4s?

Also is killing (as in unix....) a process that's hung, recommended ??

Thanks :)
As far as killing hung processes goes, the preferred method depends on what kind of process it is. For GUI applications, use the Force Quit dialog, summoned by pressing Command+Option+Escape or choosing Force Quit from the Apple menu. For background or command-line only processes, use the kill command in the Terminal. To learn about kill, type "man kill".
 

dscan99

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 10, 2004
137
0
Nashville, TN
Thanks!

daveL said:
'ps -ef' is the Unix System V version of the ps command. OS X is BSD Unix. You'd want something like 'ps aux'. If you are running Unix commands in the Terminal, you might to become familiar with the 'man' command, as in 'man ps'.

Thanks Dave! That's what I was looking for!! That's interesting Mac is BSD based....
 

dscan99

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 10, 2004
137
0
Nashville, TN
Thanks...

Westside guy said:
On one or two occasions I've had to 'killall -9 xxxxx' on OS X. It's handy to have sshd running for those odd occasions when the Finder isn't responsive - saves a hard reboot.

Thanks for this tidbit. That's exactly what I was looking to do.. save myself from a hard reboot.. after all that's what I did constantly int he Windows world and was not looking forward to doing the same on the Mac.
 
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