Controlling Processes from the Linux command line by OnWorks

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Controlling Processes

Now that we can see and monitor processes, let's gain some control over them. For our

experiments, we're going to use a little program called xlogo as our guinea pig. The xlogo program is a sample program supplied with the X Window System (the underly- ing engine that makes the graphics on our display go) which simply displays a re-sizable window containing the X logo. First, we'll get to know our test subject:

[me@linuxbox ~]$ xlogo

After entering the command, a small window containing the logo should appear some- where on the screen. On some systems, xlogo may print a warning message, but it may be safely ignored.

Tip: If your system does not include the xlogo program, try using gedit or

kwrite instead.

We can verify that xlogo is running by resizing its window. If the logo is redrawn in the new size, the program is running.

Notice how our shell prompt has not returned? This is because the shell is waiting for the program to finish, just like all the other programs we have used so far. If we close the xlogo window, the prompt returns.