[ubuntu-uk] ctrl+alt+backspace

[Johnathon Tinsley]

> 
> If you get in a situation where nowt works and X is "stuck", if the 
> keyboard still works you can always open a shell (CTL+ALT+F1to6) and 
> kill the processes manually.
> 
> If the keyboard doesn't work then you would be fskced anyway. Hard reset 
> required (or ssh into your box from another).
> 

Magic SysRq to the rescue!

You can use ALT-GR + SysRq + K to kill off X, similar (but different to
CRTL-ALT-BACKSPACE)

Alternatively, you can use the good old sequence, Raising Elephants Is
So Utterly Boring, to reboot your machine.
(R = take control of the keyboard, E = Terminate all processes
gracefully, I = Killing any that don't terminate nicely, S = flush data
to disk (no files left unwritten in RAM), U = Remount all filesystems
readonly, B = reboot)

Not all systems will honour the "B" command, but once you've got to that
stage it's perfectly safe to power off, and power back on again. Using
that sequence on a confused server has saved me half an hour of
repairing MySQL tables before now ;)

Johnathon

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