What is Digg?68 Comments
- Humptydank, on 10/12/2007, -2/+60For chrissake, how many times have I told you people never to discuss crashed Gnome sessions, having to help your wives, or rebooting in front of the Windows users!
- bemenaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28I got it to come up on cache, hope this doesn't make you mad arsgeek, it was good info, here is the meat of it:
First, we’ll try and kill all the process on your current terminal. To do this, hold down the following keys -
ALT + SysReq + k
What the heck is a SysReq key? Look for it on your PrtSc or Print Screen key. The k in this instance stands for Kill.
If that doesn’t work for you, it’s time to take drastic action. You’ll now enter a series of keystrokes that will tell your computer to do some housekeeping before shutting down.
ALT + SysReq + r
This stands for Raw keyboard mode.
ALT + SysReq + s
This syncs the disk.
ALT + SysReq + e
This terminates all processes
ALT + SysReq + i
Kill’s all processes that weren’t terminated nicely.
ALT + SysReq + u
Remounts all filesystems as read only.
ALT + SysReq + b
Reboots.
That’s a heck of a lot better than simply holding down the power button and hoping everything works out okay.
How will you ever remember all those keystrokes? There is a long held mnemonic that makes it a bit easier: - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30@ bias
They're not talking about the Linux Kernel, they're talking about the X Server which sits on top of the kernel. - Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23@coolbru: While Linux isn't completely impervious to crashing, it certainly shouldn't be crashing that often. That sounds like a hardware problem, or possibly a buggy driver.
- JohnTheLutheran, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25Dugg! This is precisely the situation my wife is in right at this minute back home. I can now phone home with some more tech support tips to at least get the thing shut down...
- prab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/How_to_gracefully_reboot_your_Ubuntu_Debian_system_if_all_else_fails/
- kitchenni, on 10/12/2007, -6/+26@bias
linux itself dont crash. software running on linux though can crash. - scuzzman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19In case anyone's curious, that mnemonic is:
Raising
Skinny
Elephants
Is
Utterly
Boring - trghpy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Good Information.
However if you have your ATX (or what ever they call it) libraries setup right, you can just push (not hold) the power button and it should start the shutdown sequence.
Its worked for me with all the common distro's - PirateFSM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16mnemonic fight!
Real
Seamen
Entertain
In
Underwater
Bunkers - greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16@coolbru: that definitely sounds like a major motherboard problem. i'd get in touch with the manufacturer and find out if there are any known chipset problems and any possible BIOS updates. no linux system should need to be rebooted for anything other than kernel updates - there's something seriously wrong there.
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16"I wasn't aware I was risking filesystem corruptions."
With a journaled file system like ext3 it's very unlikely that you'll get a corrupted file system. I've literally rebooted servers hundreds of times without any problems. I have had fsck find and correct minor problems after power outages. - TomFrost, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Well if you want to get technical, it doesn't :). This is what to do if your GUI interface crashes and isn't intercepting your usual key combos. But any servers you have running will still be running, and in most cases you can still ssh/telnet into the box with no problem. So linux itself isn't crashed, it's a program running on top of it that is.
- eje211, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Linux CAN crash if a bad module is inserted in the kernel. It happened to me with the binary nVidia driver.
- Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14"linux never needs rebooting"
Rarely, not never. That phrase came about in the Win95/98 days when Windows needed to be rebooted to change even simple things like the IP address. ("Anything deeper than the wallpaper", as Eric Raymond once put it.) Linux-based systems don't require you to reboot the whole computer just because you changed a setting somewhere. Neither does Windows anymore, mostly. (Though, Windows security updates seem to require reboots a little more often than they out to -- Linux systems will usually just restart the affected service, without having to bring everything else down too.)
Valid reasons for rebooting a Linux system:
* Kernel upgrades. The kernel gets loaded at boot time and the only way to load a new one is to reboot. (This doesn't happen very often, unless you're running the development branch of a distro.)
* System hung due to buggy device driver. Most drivers are fine but some may have stability issues, particularly those that are based on reverse-engineering rather than actual specs for the hardware they drive.
* X is hung so the keyboard and mouse aren't working, even though the rest of the system (services running in the background) are fine. You can log in over the network and forcibly kill X, but that can leave the video card in a confused state so sometimes you need to reboot to get that back to normal. - dougmc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12So let me guess at how that conversation will go in your head --
moron: Linux never needs rebooting!
you: Sure it does! Check out this link ...
moron: I stand corrected. You are so wise!
I'll be looking for the smug alert advisory ... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11i suspect you listened to some linux newbies talking gibberish. users used to linux know very well it has its share of problems and bugs. humans write it, not superhumans.
actually, mostly volunteers on the internet write it, that most don't care how the "marketing" goes, they just care of making something to work for their own.
the notion that all linux users - especially seasoned ones - spend their time trying to convince others to use linux is nonsense. - TomKarpik, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13@kitchenni: It doesn't matter if it's the kernel or not. To the end-user it's all the same, because they will find themselves unable to do anything, so they'll reach for the power button.
I wonder if the same excuse would work if this were a Windows article ... ;-) - Xenogis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11It is true, but I found your use of the acronym ATX humorous.
- Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10ACPI is what you're thinking of.
- buzzedlightyear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9maybe they can take their own advice to revive their webserver.
- blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10On the other hand if you managed to convince your wife to use linux on her macmini she probably already hates you.
- ramd3z, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I shutdown my laptop all the time when it doesn't come out of sleep mode...possibley 10 times in the past month. I wasn't aware I was risking filesystem corruptions.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Damn it arsgeek, this works for every about every Linux kernel, as long as you don't disable it while compiling.
STOP putting Ubuntu/Debian/whatever distro in the title just to get diggs!! - pritch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I've always wondered what SysRq is for. Now I know!
- arsgeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Yup. Ye Olde Digg effect. I'm moving to a server with much more oomph come January. Until then I have to live with it. :(
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7that's not ubuntu or debian only it's linux kernel general when the sysrq option in 'kernel hacking' part of the config is enabled and can be said more simply when it gets to reboot as a final resort:
alt + sysrq + s (sync the disks so anything unwritten gets written)
alt + sysrq + u (remount read only)
alt + sysrq + b (reboot)
I suspect only "u" and "b" could do since 'sync' is probably part of remounting read only but not sure about it. in other case maybe it's better first to 'u' then 's'. - redmaxx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6So if you can ssh into it, why not just ssh in and then issue "su shutdown -r now" instead of this long keysequence?
- vrillusions, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@fatdog789
If you haven't restarted an xp machine in a year, all the spyware on your computer must be thanking you greatly - jmaynardg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Only if you configure a keypress trap in /etc/inittab to change runlevels.
- tafkase7en, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12ET...Phone Home....
- NetJoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5if it's the only box around i guess this is useful. it's still a lot faster to ssh in and restart the display manager. if the box is refusing to let you kill applications, or spawn a new terminal, you really need to find out why. preferably before your drive starts to clunk, clunk, clunk.
- Xenogis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Needs to be named for Linux in general. Dugg anyway.
- hackmiester, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I hate to say this, but are you guys torturing your X servers??? I've NEVER seen X lock enough to need a reboot. It's been wedged, but I've never been able to not kill it from an ssh or something...
- coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9> i thought Linux never crash...
It does. I have 4 brand new servers running Ubuntu 6.06.1, handling a fair amount of traffic (but not excessive). I rarely get uptimes over 2 days - they just lock up totally. Nothing logged, nothing working, even console is dead, no ping, nothing. It's a shame as apart from that it's great. - greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@redmaxx: sometimes, that's not really feasible. i've had hard lockups in X before, and i could always SSH in (but i couldn't kill the X process) and force a reboot, even though the whole physical console (display, keyboard, etc.) had locked up. but i don't always have a second computer up and running that i can use to ssh in.
(instead, i'm careful to restart X periodically and avoid using software i know has a high probability of crashing X. i don't worry about lockups beyond that, because they simply don't happen.) - InetRoadkill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4A bad driver can kill Linux since drivers run with kernel privileges.
There is definitely a problem with X under Ubuntu 6.10. It seems that the gnome screensavers have a serious bug in them which will lock a system up hard as a rock. I don't know the details (I think it has something to do with certain screensavers requesting unsupported screen resolutions), but it's a little distressing that an application can trigger a full system lockup in a protected environment.
If you're running Ubuntu, turn off the screen savers or set the screensaver to blank. The openGL screensavers have a problem. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ caffeine43
Next time, RTFA. - Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've seen cases where the hung instance of X can be killed, but it fails to restart properly -- it's running, but the screen is just displaying garbage because the video card is confused.
- EricTheGrey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Nice.
This'll get bookmarked once the site is back up. :)
EtG - arsgeek, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6...And appear as a tech support god to your wife. :)
- Chupathingy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If you (like me) have a server with some flaky hardware that kernel panics randomly every so often then this link might be helpful.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Kernel_Panic_Reboot
I know I should just fix the damn server, but I just haven't gotten around to it - greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2the article is about systems where X has frozen completely. in these situations, you simply can't killall -9 X - it won't work. the process is Dead (or, sometimes a Zombie) and there's usually nothing you can do except reboot when that happens. if you have an nVidia or ATi video card, you've probably had this happen before.
- cntp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Anyone who cares about their data integrity shouldn't use asynchronous mounts in the first place....but good info nonetheless
- buzzedlightyear, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3should be no reason this should be limited to the two distro's listed in the article.
- immrlizard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Thanks for the info. I can always use things like this. I am a fairly new user of linux and really haven't had this happen to me yet. If it does, I will be ready. The only trouble I have had was learning that I needed to load a different driver for my ati card. Once I did that, everything is fine.
- ericbrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I dugg the article, but I've never had to bother with such problems. My Ubuntu install is more stable than my XP machine, and infinitely more stable than the OS X machines at work.
- dfndoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3oh! To answer my own question, you can send a "break" over serial and it will trigger the magic sysreq, however the command key must be issued no more than 5 seconds after the break.
- oDin420, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2APM or ATM?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My stupid keyboard doesn't have a SysReq key.
-
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