Thanks for the Virus.

[Jonas Norlander]

2009/3/18 Nils Kassube <kassube at gmx.net>:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>> if someone of my
>> apparent above-average skill level cannot reset the X server without
>> C-A-B, then what is the casual user to do? Serious question.
>
> Reboot. Seriously, what is wrong with that approach? If you don't know a
> better way to get back to a usable machine, IMHO rebooting isn't that
> bad. If you use C-A-B you lose unsaved data of applications still
> running. If you reboot you lose unsaved data of applications still
> running.

I was thinking on that.
My guess is that a C-A-B will send a SIGKILL to the X-server and it
will kill all it's children making you loose everything thats not
saved and leaving damaged files. Rebooting is sending a SIGTERM (and
later SIGKILL) to all processes still running and depending on the
program it still got a change to save data and close files, It will
not save your OpenOffice documents but other data like config files
have a change to shut down more graceful.
Any know how X and KDE will handle a reboot from CLI? Is it safer then C-A-B?

/ Jonas