Defunct process

[Ray Ward]

In article <1805 at cygnet.UUCP> mark at cygnet.UUCP (Mark Quattrocchi) writes:
>I occasionally get both a <defunct> and <exiting> process after having
>tip croak on me. [...]
>                Even as root I can't kill these damn processes and it 
>leaves me with an unusable modem until I reboot the system.

>From the symptoms you describe, it seems that a likely explanation
is that the driver you are using is sleeping, waiting for a high-level
interrupt to wake him up.  Unfortunately, the communications have somehow
croaked, so the interrupt will never come.  The driver has set the
interrupt level so high that a normal signal will not be able to break
him out of his sleep.  Rebooting is the only general, reliable method
I know of to remedy the problem.

Perhaps there should be another command to allow su to interrupt
sleeping beauty?  (As opposed to ad hoc hacking with the kernel...)



-- 
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Ray Ward                                          Email:  uunet!ctbilbo!ray  
Voice:  (214) 991-8338x226, (800) 331-7032        Fax  :  (214) 991-8968     
=-=-=-=-  There _are_ simple answers, just no _easy_ ones. -- R.R. -=-=-=-=