[MPlayer-users] Questions about processes and process control

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 02:04:20PM -0700, Ed Greenberg wrote:
> 0. what's the purpose of the second process. Is one a caching process? 
> Do I need it if my source is a nice fast cable connection, and my 
> destination is -ao pcm:waveheader?

Yes, that process is for caching and most likely you can just use
-nocache

> 2. If I'm going to kill it externally, what's the best signal to kill it 
> on, so that it takes down both processes, if at all?

Well, you could try one of the signals for terminating a process, like
SIGINT, SIGQUIT or SIGTERM, but certainly not SIGHUP.

> 3, If I have to kill the two processes separately, which should I kill 
> first?

Makes no difference at all, killing PID+1 is a very bad idea though, you might
end up killing anything, there is no reason why PIDs have to be
sequential.