Thanks for the Virus.

[Jonas Norlander]

2009/3/18 Kaj Haulrich <kaj at haulrich.net>:
> On Wednesday 18 March 2009 16:51:26 Jonas Norlander wrote:
>> 2009/3/18 Nils Kassube <kassube at gmx.net>:
>> > Dotan Cohen wrote:
>> >> if someone of my
>> >> apparent above-average skill level cannot reset the X server
>> >> without C-A-B, then what is the casual user to do? Serious
>> >> question.
>> >
>> > Reboot. Seriously, what is wrong with that approach? If you
>> > don't know a better way to get back to a usable machine, IMHO
>> > rebooting isn't that bad. If you use C-A-B you lose unsaved
>> > data of applications still running. If you reboot you lose
>> > unsaved data of applications still running.
>>
>> I was thinking on that.
>> My guess is that a C-A-B will send a SIGKILL to the X-server and
>> it will kill all it's children making you loose everything thats
>> not saved and leaving damaged files. Rebooting is sending a
>> SIGTERM (and later SIGKILL) to all processes still running and
>> depending on the program it still got a change to save data and
>> close files, It will not save your OpenOffice documents but other
>> data like config files have a change to shut down more graceful.
>> Any know how X and KDE will handle a reboot from CLI? Is it safer
>> then C-A-B?
>
> An even safer method - if everything locks up - is to use the
> "elephant sequence" - assuming the keyboard is still functioning.
>

I did a quick google search on "elephant sequence" and not much turned
up but some disney movie and some old mails from you. Do you mean the
SysRq keyboard shortcuts?
Thats probably the best way if you cant get a console, but it have
some drawbacks, like it want run any shutdown scripts. So if one still
can access a console and run commands i think the safest method is to
run reboot/shutdown.

/ Jonas