For a while, Ctrl+\ worked like a charm. Now, it does not kill the process. In fact it does nothing.
An example how it does NOT work:
adi@ebi:~ $ sleep 10
^C
[exited with 130]
adi@ebi:~ $ sleep 10
^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\
adi@ebi:~ $
Ctrl+C stops sleep as usual, but Ctrl+\ does not, but it should, right?
Best Answer
What Ctrl + \ does is send
SIGQUIT
to the foreground process. Some developers want to use SIG* events in a way that the user might not expect or is accustomed to. You didn't mention the program, but lets see my case with Ctrl + \ andmplayer
:As you see, mplayer catch the signal, but don't exit immediately. If I had used Ctrl + C it would say "MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: play_audio". What I'm trying to explain is that each program can interpret the signals the way they like, without caring for what it is supposed to do. You must review the documentation. Also, remember that
SIGKILL
or9
should be resorted as last resource. You must check that the keystrokes are also sent to the process, the keymap is correct and your keyboard is connected.