REISUB versus ctrl-alt-del

[PleegWat]

On 03/05/2011 07:43 AM, Thufir Hawat wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:28:24 -0500, Tom H wrote:
>
>
>> The first is to kill X and it can be re-enabled through the GUI or the
>> CLI. It's probably been disabled in default X installs to prevent anyone
>> from using it by mistake.
>
> Well, my question remains:  REISUB is overkill.  Isn't there anything
> less drastic which works by default?
>
>
> -Thufir
>
>

You can use ctrl-alt-F1 (through F6) to switch to a different virtual 
console, which will give you a text logon. Use alt-f7 to go back. The 
extra 'ctrl' is only needed when the active console has X running.

You may use alt-sysrq-R to force keyboard control away from X if the 
commands above don't work - in that case I think adding ctrl to alt-F1 
is no longer needed.

You may use alt-sysrq-K to kill all processes on the active virtual 
terminal (unless I'm misremembering?). However if X is borked, I'm not 
sure which of these routes will switch to text mode correctly.

A trick I've used myself is when the screensaver password box becomes 
unresponsive. (My previous system at work had that sometimes). After 
switching to virtual console 1 and logging in, I'd send a sighup to the 
relevant process and it would then start working again.

PleegWat