[TriLUG] What to do when KDE freaks out?

[Josh Vickery]

>It will not let me do
> anything with the keyboard at this point (or I am trying the wrong key
> combinations). Since I don't know what else to do, I've just powered
> down the machine (I know you're cringing now) and boot it back up.

> Is there anything I can do to fix this? Or to keep from shutting it down
> harshly when it happens? 

If the previous <ctrl>-<alt> suggestions don't work, and your two boxes
are networked, you can install the ssh client and server on your linux
box (apt-get install ssh) and putty (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) 
on your windows box.  This will let you log into your linux
box from your windows box and try all sorts of repair tasks, such as 
killing X (killall (-9) XFree86) or re-booting the computer (shutdown -r now).

josh


--
Joshua Vickery
vickeryj at alumni.grinnell.edu