[PLUG] Killing a process that won't die

[Karl M. Hegbloom]

Try the "killall" command, part of the sysvinit package.  You can kill
processes by name, rather than by PID that way.  Also, the "ps" command
has several useful switches for determining the run state of a process. 
Look for one that will show you the "WCHAN".  Sometimes things get stuck
in disk I/O, and cannot be killed.  Usually then though, they are not
spinning the CPU.  I guess if it can spin the CPU, then it probably can
be killed.

I most often run:

ps wwwauxf | less

or use "kim" or "gitps".