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In command line I wrote:

michael@ubuntu:~$ firefox

Firefox launched. Command prompt ($) disappeared.

Then I pressed ^+z.

The result was:

[1]+  Stopped                 firefox

Well, Firefox really stopped. It did not react anyhow. So, I could not close it by pressing the cross of the window. By the way, the menu items 'Tools', and 'Help' somehow showed some signs of life. They showed drop-down lists, but nothing more (no reaction to inner menu items).

Well, I could not end Firefox through System Monitor.

Could you comment on this case: what happened after pressing ^+z?

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1 Answer 1

up vote 5 down vote accepted

By pressing ^z ( Ctrl+Z ) you send a SIGSTOP signal to the process, which stops it. You can re-start it using the fg command (foreground) or make it continue to run in the background using the bg command.

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Ctrl + Z suspends the process, in other words. –  fromnaboo Oct 6 '12 at 10:20

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