on Thu, Mar 15, 2001 at 03:14:44PM -0500, Mathieu, Barry (Barry_Mathieu@littonas.com) wrote:
> Trouble.
>
> My keyboard is not responding (poof - dead), even the LED indicator
> for caps lock doesn't illuminate. I have X running, w/ ICEWM. There
> is a mouse menu that allows reboot, but only works if logged-in as
> root, which I am not. And, I am a bit of a Linux newbie.
>
> Is there anyway to reboot my machine simply by using the mouse? Is
> there any way to re-establish communication with the keyboard w/ only
> a mouse? Any ideas? I really don't want to push that power button.
>
> Sigh,
> Barry
Your video driver and/or card are probably wedged. It rarely gets
unwedged w/o a restart.
Your options:
- Hit the Big Red Switch. Though it's generally discouraged, it's
usually OK to power-cycle a GNU/Linux box. Just make sure to allow
the filesystem to fsck on boot.
- Look into the magic SysRq key. This is a kernel option which allows
a minimal amount of control over your system even when most
functionality is missing.
- If you are networked or have serial access to your system (a Palm
Pilot may suffice), you may be able to switch to a console or reboot
your system cleanly.
- I believe there's an option in XF86 configuration to allow killing
an X session with various mouse click combinations, though I've
never tried this (or did and failed, don't recall).
Cheers.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal
http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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