How to Kill a Process by Name in Linux: A Quick Guide

In Linux, it’s common to run into situations where you need to stop a process that’s stuck or causing issues, like when Firefox doesn’t close properly. Rather than searching for the process ID (PID), which changes every time, killing a process by name is often quicker and easier. In this post, we’ll explore different ways to accomplish this using various commands and options.

1. Using pkill to Kill Processes by Name

The pkill command allows you to terminate processes by name directly, without needing the PID. Here’s how:

pkill firefox

This command will find all processes named “firefox” and terminate them.

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