Here is the video version, if you prefer it:
Let’s talk about how to kill a process. That means to end a process; to terminate it. You can do this with the kill command.
Usage of kill is this:
kill <PID>
where PID is the process ID of the process you want to kill (you can attain this ID using ps with its various options). By default, kill sends a TERM signal to the process. (Ward, 2014) You don’t really need to know any other signals. If the process doesn’t terminate after that, you can try using
kill -KILL <PID>
which sends the KILL signal, but use it as the last resort – it ends the process in an ugly way.
Hope you learned something new!
References
Ward, B. (2014). How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know (2nd ed.). No Starch Press. Pages 31-32