[NCLUG] Getting out from under X

[Matt Taggart]

rosing at peakfive.com writes...

> Hi,
> 
> Is there a key sequence to get out from under X when it hangs?
> Something to do with pdf documents occasionally freezes everything on
> my screen except I can move the mouse around.

Which pdf viewer do you use?  So I know to avoid it :)

> Since I can't kill
> anything or bring up a window, much less type in a command, I end up
> having to reboot the machine (I don't have a network set up).

Well you can switch to a virtual console with CTRL-ALT-F{1-6} and kill the 
process responsible.

Here's some other general notes...

If you really want to kill X then use CTRL-ALT-Backspace

If you can't switch to a VC and X won't die then you might want to do 
CTRL-ALT-Del to reboot cleanly.

If CTRL-ALT-Del doesn't work then you might use the Magic SYSRQ sequence. You 
need to have it built into your kernel and it's documented in the kernel 
source at Documentation/sysrq.txt

HTH,

-- 
Matt Taggart
taggart at fc.hp.com