Force kill frozen apps in Ubuntu

Though system stability is one of the major reasons I love Ubuntu, there are very rare occasions, some programs do freeze up in this amazing OS. Here's how to force kill a program like that. And believe me, this is much, much simpler than in Windows. The force quit takes less than a second, magically, in every case, no matter how hard it has hung up.

So, simply, press Alt+F2. You'll get this dialog box:

Type in 'xkill' and hit Run. Now, your pointer will change to a little cross. Aim the window that's frozen up and shoot it down. You're done. The program will close down.

As another little tip, you can even add a shortcut icon for this task killer to a Panel, like so:

See the window with a crack?

Just right-click the Panel and choose Add to Panel... You'll get a box like this:

In the field there, type in 'xkill' and add it. You're done. Now, you are armed with a gun to shoot down unstable apps with, anytime.

Beginners can check out my recent post on how to log into Terminal as root, and those who are dual-booting Windows with Ubuntu can see how to switch from the very cluttered GRUB bootloader to the Windows bootloader over here.

Force kill frozen apps in Ubuntu