Comment 47 for bug 213053

I tried to add my comment before but I cannot see it yet, so I'll try again. I wonder if Ubuntu has changed "classical" Unix privilege settings , and if that might be the problem. I have exactly the same problem with Totem becoming uninterruptible. I watch a movie and close the window. The GUI disappears but the process seems to survive. I have managed to set a password for root and I cannot kill -9 the process. Now here is my question. I work with both Solaris, HP-Unix and Linux. I have never seen a case where root cannot kill -9 a process. In the Unix signal definitions, you can read that the 9-signal is not catchable by any process, and root should have the right to send any signal to any process. Why on earth is the process not dying? Does this occur on other flavors of Linux, like Suse, Mandriva or Slackware? Has Ubuntu (and possibly Debian) modified the privileges of root?