PDF vs Printers

[Bob McConnell]

Ioannis Vranos wrote:
> Jeffrey Tooker wrote:
>  Bart:
> 
> If you get a blank screen under X.org or X.org is locked up, you have
> two options:
> 
> 1. Use Ctrl-Alt-F1/F2/F3 to switch to another console, log in, and type
> shutdown -r now
> 
> This will do a software reboot.
> 
> 
> shutdown -P now
> 
> performs a shutdown and powers-off the system.
> 
> 
> 2. Use Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, to kill X.org. X.org is restarted
> automatically. If it doesn't and you come to a console prompt, type
> startx to start it.
> 

3. Log in from another computer using telnet or ssh. From the command 
line enter "sudo shutdown -r now" to reboot. You might also use ps, top 
and a few other programs to figure out what is going on. The first thing 
I would do is "tail /var/log/syslog", "tail /var/log/messages" and "tail 
/var/log/debug" to see if there are any error messages recorded. You may 
have to enable telnetd or sshd before this will work on your computer.

4. Set up getty on a spare serial port and connect another computer to 
it with a null modem cable. Then you can bring up a terminal emulator 
and log in to a console session on it when all else fails. I recall an 
article on this technique sub-titled "A front door worth keeping open" 
or something like that. I used to use it from a laptop to my headless 
Slackware firewall many moons ago.

Bob McConnell
N2SPP