🚀 go-pugleaf

robert@humbug.org.au (Robert Brockway) writes:

>Michael James (q9722124@helios.usq.edu.au) wrote:
>: Dave Fitch wrote:

>:   Oh, I always log out (usually from non-root) then hit it.  On a
>:   related subject: we managed to hang the system by starting doom the
>:   other day (the non-Xwindows version of doom).  I couldn't quit it
>:   or get to another virtual terminal or anything.  Had to hit the
>:   reset button (then watch fsck cleaning up stuff when it restarted).
>:   Is there anything I can do when this happens?? (apart from hitting
>:   "reset" of course)


>: If you have a network you can telnet in from another machine and shut it
>: down from there.

>Yep, what you are discribing is the infamous 'console crash'.  This is
>where a graphucs program (most notably svga programs) leave the video
>registers with weird values.  This results in the video subsystem
>crashing.  The symptoms are exactly as u describe - and yes telnetting in
>or logging in from a dumbterm or Xterm to shutdown the system works.  GGI
>will fix this problem.

While GGI may be a magic solution,  there are a number of things you
can do when this happens. And not everybody has a dumb terminal or
a network connection to their computer.

Lets say you don't have either. Assuming the app (doom) has died and left 
your keyboard in "raw" mode, you can type "2 F12 =" which in raw mode
corresponds to " ^C X <enter> " and hopefully the X server will come 
up, fixing the keyboard in the process. Then you can hit 
<Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Bksp> to get rid of X, and use "restoretextmode",
"restorefont" and "restorepallete" to get things back sane.
(You have to run the 1st 2 with the "-w" option and with a "normal"
screen to get a snapshot of what the vga card should be set to first.)
If you don't want to futz with the restore* programs, then you can
simply hit <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del> after killing the X server to get a
clean shutdown. The Keyboard-HowTo lists some other tricks like
the "2 F12 =" one as well.

And if the keyboard goes nuts on you, then the console mouse program
(called gpm) has an option that you can use to request a clean
shutdown via the mouse with a special click sequence. It is not
enabled by default, but it is documented in the man page ("man gpm").
You may wish to make use of that on your system.

Finally, if you suspect a SVGA-lib program is crash-prone, you can
always do a "/sbin/shutdown -r +10 & " prior to running the faulty
program. You will then have 10 minutes to get back to a working
console and type "/sbin/shutdown -c " to cancel the reboot.  :)

Hope this is of some use to people.

Paul.