Lockup

[shengchieh]

If you can open a terminal, do

top

to see which process(es) is(are) hogging your computer (give more weight to the memory column)  and do

ps -ef

to see what processes are running and their ID #.
Use kill (need PID #) or pkill (need executable name) to remove the process.

If you know it will hang when running something, try opening a terminal first.  Type "top" and make sure the memory column is viewable.  The run the program(s) that you think problematic.

Sheng-Chieh

[N4RPS]

Hello!

Sometimes, it isn't REALLY locked up, it's just 'thinking' - especially on low-resource systems. No matter how 'lightweight' an OS is, you can only do so much with 512MB RAM.

If you can toggle CAPS LOCK on and off, it's thinking. If you can't, it's locked up...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[Alex]

Hello!

I just hold the power button for 4+ seconds...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

LOL that is what I was trying to avoid...

[N4RPS]

Hello!

I just hold the power button for 4+ seconds...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[Alex]

Thank you all. I have added the keyboard shortcut and have written down the finger acrobatics map

[gold_finger]

If it locks up to point you can't do anything at all except force shutdown, it's best to do the following to shutdown gracefully.  It's kind of like finger acrobatics or twister, but it works.

While holding down <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<SysRq> (same as PrtScn key), slowly press these keys in this order:  R  E  I  S  U  B  (lowercase).  Hold each of those letters down for at least a half second each -- that's how slow you want to type them.

[Jerry]

You could create a keyboard shortcut for Task Manager.

Menu > Settings > Keyboard, Applications Shortcuts tab.
Add, Command - xfce4-taskmanager, Ok, Ctrl+Alt+Delete

[Alex]

Thank you Scott, I will try those in future, but I was aminly asking for the possibility of a gui interface.

[Scott]

Hi Alex,

These commands may help or at least get you started.

This will get you to a terminal outside of the desktop environment.
Ctrl + Alt + F1

This will put you back into the desktop environment.
Ctrl + Alt + F7

Examine running process/programs. In a terminal type:
htop
With htop running it's possible to 'kill' a program that's causing problems.

Reboot the computer from a terminal
sudo shutdown -r now

Shutdown the computer from a terminal
sudo shutdown -h now

[shengchieh]

I can't answer your specific question (can someone else?), but ...

linux system, unlike window system, should not lock up.  Pay attention to what you last run that created the lockup.  Maybe you can see a pattern, i.e., always a music program, etc.
Also, keep track of what you updated - once in awhile, the problem is an update.

You can always kill specific program on a terminal, but if your screen locks up then that won't help.

Sheng-Chieh

[Alex]

My system has frozen up/lockedup twice in the last week probably from trying to do too many things at the same time, it's not a worry.

But what the problem is that I really don't know what to do - in Win I used to hit ctrl/alt /delete and there fix the problem. I have tried I few things on LL (ctrl/alt/bckspace etc) but the best result has been a redirection to the terminal...then I have no idea how to proceed.

A GUI interface similar to the one on Win would be helpful to dummies like me...