I'm new to Linux Mint and recently had a problem while installing something through Bottles. A pop-up appeared over a game and became unresponsive. I couldn't switch away with Alt+Tab, although the rest of the computer was still working and I could move around in the game.
I found Ctrl+Alt+F2, which switched me to a full-screen text terminal, and Ctrl+Alt+F7 returned me to the desktop. However, the game had crashed by then while Discord remained connected. What's the safest and easiest way to close a frozen window or application next time?
4 Answers
If the desktop is still responsive, open System Monitor and find the frozen application, then end its process. You can also use xkill: launch it from a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T, then click the unresponsive window. Be careful, because clicking the wrong window will terminate that application.
Switching to a text terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F1 through F6 is a good fallback when the graphical desktop is stuck. Log in and run `top`, `htop`, or `btop` to locate and terminate the troublesome process. Return to the graphical session with the appropriate Alt+F key; F7 is common, but the exact key depends on the setup.
This is essentially what I discovered with Ctrl+Alt+F2. Using htop or btop should make finding the crashed program easier than guessing its name.
From a terminal, you can identify the program and stop it manually. Commands such as `pidof program-name` or `ps aux | grep program-name` can help find its process ID. Try `kill PID` first, since that gives the application a chance to exit cleanly; use `kill -9 PID` only if it refuses to stop. `killall program-name` is another option, but it will close every instance with that name.
On Cinnamon, Alt+F2 followed by `r` and Enter can restart the desktop shell without closing your applications. That’s useful when Cinnamon itself is misbehaving, but it won’t necessarily fix an individual game or program that has frozen. Ctrl+Alt+Backspace may restart the graphical session on some systems, though it can close the whole desktop session and is often disabled, so it shouldn’t be the first choice.
Restarting Cinnamon sounds helpful if the desktop is the part that freezes. I’ll try the less disruptive options first before using anything that might end the whole session.
System Monitor is useful to know about. I’ll also look into xkill, since being able to click the problem window sounds convenient.