Tired of xkill, try doom

[Markus]

Heh, a new way to manage your processes: http://www.cs.unm.edu/~dlchao/flake/doom/

[Cuddles]

Markus,

Great idea, I think the person who came up with it, is a varitable "genious in the making" with there idea - Sure would take the "chore" out of Administating your system... I can think of some things that would make it "complicated" though... As the author states, it would be hard, in a "business" environment, to "sell" your boss on the idea that you arent playing a game, but, actually doing your job, and the other thought, also brought up by the author, who's to say that you wont just want to "play" and do it by taking the system, or network, or another user, down, just so you can play the "game"?

I can imagine a "team" of players, oops, I mean "Sys Admins", playing to all-ends-of-the-night, with headsets on, so that they can "coordinate" there efforts together better, all attempting to "take down" a rogue process that has gone berzerk, possibly an XMMS process on a users system, connected to the "companys" netwrok, that is not responding anymore, and has locked the users system from any response... "Charlie is just around the corner.", "Ten-four, confirm, I can see XMMS, its big, its really big.", "Confirm, I see it too, its going after the INIT5 process. INIT5 is taking substantial damage, it won't be long before it will be wounded.", "Enough with the excess chatter, we're going in. Blue1, follow me in, we're going to be the first wave, Green5, you hold back with Red2, and back us up if we dont succeed.", "Confirm, may the force be with us."

Heck with using "Doom" for the game, go with a Star Wars game, a system could be the Deathstar, or something... [giggle] -=- This reminds me of a scene in Airplane II, where a kid thinks a console for directing incoming shuttles "happens" to be right where the "Tour" is going by, is a game, and ends up distroying a landing spacecraft... Possibly, this should not be a used interface when you have kids running around? Or, may I suggest, a screen lock, especially if you are root with this game / interface running on it?

The author has a good idea, its interesting, ingenuitive, and just plain, fun - the "drudgery" of System Administration, would actually be fun... "Oh, drats! I've got to kill another non-responding process! Oh, the pain of my job!" ( with the best sarcastic voice I can do this in ) -=- Lastly, the author did bring up a concern though, and quite valid actually... If you are "really" trying to do what you have to do, to regain the system, whats to say that you don't get killed off in the process? Whats to say, that you inadvertantly, kill off the "wrong" process? -=- Its a good analogy, a "fantasy role playing game" being seen as a "System Administrator" guarding there systems, processes being seen as monsters, and you, the hero, must save your system... Very imaginative, but, be sure you dont accidently think its really a game, and not the "tool", and start going after "all the bad guys".

[Markus]

Yes well, the "heh" did mean I see this doom administrating as a joke. Sure it would function but I wouldn't run it myself.

[Cuddles]

I kind of felt the same way, its cute, its even fun, maybe a novelty kind of thing... You use it once, or twice, and then go back to what you "usually" use... Maybe "bring it out" to show off to someone, or something...

My problem is, if I am running XMMS, or Kaffeine, or for that matter, Xine, if it cant get to the "source" read; like an audio-CD, or DVD, my system just locks - probably gets lost in a "cd read loop" - and nothing, I repeat, nothing, is able to be done; no keyboard control, only the reset on the case... This has happened at least three occasions, the system just gets lost, gkrellm still gets updated, but no response. So, even if I have a screen open to fire off a kill, or xkill, I cant get to it... This would be the same if I had "this", even running in the "background" all the time, I couldnt get to it, to do anything. This kind of "situation" happened in Windows also, when you get down to the level of "hardware" requests, the system doesnt know what a "waiting period" is about, and just goes on waiting, for the request to be fullfilled, and from what I have found out, that waiting period is almost forever. I think the "hardware request" finally gives up, but never notifies the "system" of this, so the system just locks up waiting for this response, which it will never get, because the request is no longer active in the hardware. -=- my best guess on this [ ? ]

[OErjan]

cuddles. do you have more than one computer?
i have "saved" many a session with the help of ssh.
i am sitting there doing some near idiotic things with my system (like making some stupid binary driver work) suddenly the LED's on the keyboarf are all ligthing my face and nothing responds. i turn in my seat and use my trusted old laptop to ssh to my computer and with help of
ps -aux
kill -9 pid
and friends i get a working system. perhaps a zombie or so but...

[Cuddles]

I do have two systems, right next to each other, but, alas, they have no network with each other - about the only thing they have, in common, is, they use the same phone line to connect to the internet, which, we only have one phone line - I've wanted to get them set up with an intranet link together, so that, probably this system, the one running Linux, could be a internet server for the ( yack, Win98 ) other system. But, I want to use a 10base2 network, coaxial, not the 10baseT, modular, cards - since the coaxial can be done with two "T" ''s and a small cable with BNC connectors on it, whereas the modular would require a hub, cost here...

Havent gotten the hardware for it yet... But, I would love to do that, used to work as a UNIX Sys Admin ( helper ), and loved to remote login to stop a rogue process that was locking someones system up - or, the other cute trick - start "roaches" on the unsuspecting system user [giggle]

Thanks for the idea, it will "someday" be possible

[OErjan]

what??
you do NOT need a hub to conect two computers.
i have frequently used just a crossed cat5 cable. not costing more than a regular cable (some do but only marginally), i have even made X'ed ones myself (i have the tools for both coax and rj45...).
the setup below is one i used before i got broadband.
computer1--crosover-cable--computer2-modem--phoneline
the truble you mention is that the normal straight ocver cable wont work between two computers, but a crosover will.
be certain to use the right pairs if ever making yourown cable. the pairs are matched to reduce interference and thus increse speed and reliability for my roll of cable it looks like this )for me your milage may vary WILDLY).

Wirecolor	Name 	Pin	Pin 	Name	wirecolor
(might vary)					(might vary)
White/Orange	TX+	1	3	RX+	White/Orange
Orange		   TX-   2   6  RX-	Orange
White/Green	 RX+	3	1  TX+	White/Green
Green		    RX-	6   2  TX-  Green
Blue			        4   4	    Blue
White/Blue		     5	5 	   White/Blue
White/Brown		    7   7     White/Brown
Brown			       8   8		   Brown

pleese be certain that you know what you do. otherwise hardwaredamage may result.

[Cuddles]

OErjan

I think this subject will be started in the Network Forum, considering, that if I can locate the nic's for both computers, I'm going to need help getting the "software" running on both... But, to close it out here...

I would need two Network Interface Cards, using 10baseT, modular plugs, and one "cross-over" cable to connect between them... With the hardware tieing the systems together, get the software up on both to make a intranet, designate one as the "internet" server, and make the other, the "client". I can also setup a peer to peer ( P2P ) network for shared resources, like printer, and hard drive resources, as well...

I was a "old school" network technician, coaxial & back-bone cable, and when the company went to 10baseT, I was "phased out"... I havent really worked with the modular, and was going off of what "I have heard" knowledge, and it appears, seriously, out-dated, thanks for teaching this "old dog'ett" a new trick

[firebyrd10]

Cross-over cables may also be called patch cables.

(I needed something to add)

[A. Jorge Garcia]

I ssh in as root to a PC with a problem and fix it remotely too.

But there are alternatives to this on the self same PC you're experiencing problems with.

(1) <ctrl><alt><backspace> will log you out of your current session and bring back the login screen on a hdinstalled PC or restart KDE on a cdboot.

(2) <ctrl><alt><f1> will let you login on a text console as root. There you can run top to identify the offending pid. Then kill it!

HTH,
AJG