What does the "<>" mean in "kill -9 <>"?

You're supposed to replace the <> by the process id. To get the process id, you can use the command

ps -aux

It will list all the processes, and you just have to choose the right process

If you have a single instance of a process, you can also use the pkill commmand with the name of the process, eg

pkill -9 mysql

It is

<pid> [...]
      Send signal to every <pid> listed.

in manpage. There is always description inside of the <> quotes.

In addition to the answer by Felicien using the ps command, you can also use top or htop

top -d 10

Use -d <> (duration) to update every <> seconds.

To kill the process, simply note the PID and kill the process ID with:

kill -9 xxxx

Note: for htop, you will need to type htop -d 100 ie; 10 seconds.

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