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by ars 3119 days ago
> It's useful like an atom bomb is useful

It's intended for when you reboot the system, to get every process to quit. And for when you logout, to close everything you have running.

So yes, useful.
1 comments
lstyls 3118 days ago
Wut?

When logging out via the OS supplied method this is handled for the user. Why on earth would a user have to call kill -1 on logout?

My comment was from the perspective of an application developer.

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ars 3118 days ago
`kill(-1, ...)` is a syscall, it's not an application command.

> this is handled for the user.

And that's how - they call that syscall.

Maybe you didn't realize. Notice the parenthesis? It's a function call in a programming language. The command line program is just a passthrough to the syscall.

And when rebooting you do need the command line program, so preventing it from passing -1 through doesn't make sense either.

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