LinuxMusicians

Hi everyone,
this may or may not be new to you all, but it was to me.. (don't know if this section is the best or not, but a "how to" for some basic tricks on this forum might be good..)

If your system locks up, you can use the following key combinations:

Alt + SysReq + R : regain control of the keyboard

Alt + SysReq + E : terminate processes

Alt + SysReq + I : terminate locked processes

Alt + SysReq + S : synchronize disks

Alt + SysReq + U : unmount disks

Alt + SysReq + B : reboot.



brian

brian, thanks so much for posting that. I've been looking for something similar for quite a while. It pains me to say it, but I'm kind of looking forward to testing this out my next system freeze

Cheers!

zth wrote:brian, thanks so much for posting that. I've been looking for something similar for quite a while. It pains me to say it, but I'm kind of looking forward to testing this out my next system freeze

Cheers!

Thanks zth! After I posted it, I thought it was pretty unrelated to music production. But at the same time I was thinking that it's always good to have a list of "quick fixes" at one's fingertips. It can't hurt to have them handy..


brian

falkTX wrote:btw, if you have a laptop, you usually have to press Alt + [Fn] to get the SysRq key (and then release the [Fn] key before triggering the action).
In my laptop [Fn] is "hidden" behind the End key, so I have to do:

press and hold Alt
press and hold Fn
press SysRq once
release Fn
press the respective action key now (ie, B to reboot)

Definitely useful too. I wish these companies would all adhere to some type of guidelines, rather than leaving endusers in the dark about these kinds of things...


brian

Necro-posting here. An easy mnemonic to remember this is:

Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring.

edit: the SysReq key is often disguised as 'PrintScreen'. Sometimes an app can misbehave, making normal control impossible. If the capslock or numlock still work, it's still alive under there. This is a way to restart as gracefully as it can. Open work not saved will be lost.

The order is not particularly important as long as the b is the last one. This feature requires that your kernel have Magic-SysReq enabled at compile time. Most already do, but it was removed from stock distros for a while.

If it doesn't work, here's how to enable it in Ubuntu variants.

For 12.04 and older
Edit the file /etc/sysctl.conf to include the line For Ubuntu 12.10 and newer
Starting with 12.10 a more control of which Magic-SysRq features are enabled is possible. Just edit the file /etc/sysctl.d/10-magic-sysrq.conf It should be self-explanatory.