How To Kill Processes in Linux

Kill processes in Linux to keep down memory and CPU usage.

Kill processes

To kill a process or application in Linux is quite simple, you can do it based on ID or name.

Overview

To get an overview I often use the top command using Ubuntu.

This is possible right out of the box, without installing any third-party software.

You can also use the ps -ef command to get something quite like it.

Kill by ID

To kill by the specified ID, you simply use the kill command.

sudo kill <pid>

Kill by name

To kill by name, you use the pkill command.

sudo pkill <name>