Thank you, Boyd, that was just the sort of answer I was looking for. I tried using Ctrl+Alt+F1 to drop into a terminal but, again, it wasn't responsive. I'll commit your suggestions to memory for the next time the system locks up.
You touched on the crux of my complaint: sure, I expect the odd processes to get out of control but keyboard/mouse/touchpad/input should still take precedence and allow someone to recover a badly crippled system. I was frustrated that Linux doesn't enforce this by default - assuming that it can. However, although I summarised my story as 'wait or yank power,' I did try a few keyboard interrupts: Ctrl+Alt+Del (possibly disabled), Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (probably disabled), and the Ctrl+Alt+F# keys. Unless the keyboard interrupts take special precedence, it's safe to assume that my system, indeed, locked up. I fix computers part time and I've seen first-hand what yanking the power can do to file system integrity. The thing to remember is that I'm not as smart as most of the people on this list but I'm not completely stupid either. Computer competence falls on a spectrum and not simply Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. However, it's feedback like this which helps me improve my skills. With thanks, -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201104221453.38558.j...@bordenrhodes.com
