[olug] unlock/free frozen process xmms and /dev/dsp w/o reboot?

[Brian Wiese]

I was just reading some other mailing list responses, trying to find out
if I can free up xmms and /dev/dsp without a reboot? ... and is there any
harder kill than "kill -9" ? This sounded like my exact problem:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=kill+/dev/dsp&hl=en&selm=slrn9mn1j7.acr.danceswithcrows%40samantha.crowdancer.org&rnum=4

<also...>
>Are there any common elements to the applications that crash and leave
>/dev/dsp "locked"?  Does /usr/bin/foobar die like this 50% of the times
>you run it?  More info, please....
</he never got an answer, could I get one?>

But as typical, this is a great recognition of the problem, I'm wondering
if there is any solution?  My xmms is frozen and in state "D":

bwiese at liberty:~> ps aux | grep xmms
bwiese   16879  0.0  2.1 27296 10856 pts/9   D    Apr09   0:00 xmms
bwiese   18330  0.0  0.1  1620  596 pts/19   S    01:24   0:00 grep xmms

so I cannot "kill" it (man, I really wanna kill it!) and my /dev/dsp is
still in use by this xmms process: 

bwiese at liberty:~> lsof /dev/dsp
COMMAND   PID   USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
xmms    16879 bwiese   11w   CHR   14,3      3260 /dev/dsp0

Also, my hard drive light for the drive I play my mp3s from (/data on the
same system), is constantly on solid.  So this is some kind of I/O buffer
problem or something? Can I release this?

liberty:/home/bwiese # umount /data
umount: /data: device is busy
liberty:/home/bwiese # lsof /data
COMMAND   PID   USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE    SIZE NODE NAME
bash     1304 bwiese  cwd    DIR    7,1    3104   98 /data/mp3s/976
xmms    16879 bwiese  cwd    DIR    7,1    3104   98 /data/mp3s/976
xmms    16879 bwiese   10r   REG    7,1 5511598  101
/data/mp3s/976/Creed_-_Bullets.mp3
find    17919 nobody    4r   DIR    7,1    2192    2 /data


I would have to think that (this being Linux and all) there is some way
for me to unlock /dev/dsp without rebooting the whole system, some way to
'reboot' /dev/dsp solely... is there or not?  If anyone has any ideas or
experience (or share in this complaint), please let me know. 

Thanks!

<sys stats>
SuSE 7.3 Pro - Dual Cel 366 - 512mb - Abit BP6 mobo 
- /data (mp3s drive/partition) is encrypted* Reiser fs
- /home is encrypted* Reiser also (*decrypts on boot/mount).
SB Live Value sound card
</sys stats>

 
peace, thanks in advance... 
and if no one has an answer, thats alright too, though not hoped for. :)

Brian

------------------------------------------------------
  Brian Wiese | bwiese at cotse.com | aim: unolinuxguru
------------------------------------------------------
GnuPG = www.unomaha.edu/~bwiese/gpg/bwiese-pubkey.html
          "FREEDOM!"  - Braveheart
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