I would like to have a shortcut to reboot my macbook pro from the console/X/during boot-up or to force a reboot when shutdown stops half way.

But the key labeled "delete" acts like "backspace" which is handy to kill X and edit files, but I have to hard-halt-and-reboot when the computer hangs.

The key on top of "delete" is the "eject" button.

three-finger-salute on ctrl-alt-eject or ctrl-alt-esc would be convenient if possible.

(no, this post is not about obscene gestures)

I presume you googled this? I found a couple of blogs complaining at length that this functionality was lacking. One said he'd buy a MacBook Pro in a minute if it could do that and right click (have the trackpad work like a mighty mouse).

On the other hand, with google, terminology is everything. "three finger salute" is PC terminology. Change the search to "force reboot macbook pro" and one of the pages that comes to the top is http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319. This article gives 3 options for dealing with a recalcitrant MacBook or MacBook Pro:

1. Force Quit (Option-Command-Escape)
2. Restart (Control-Command-Power)
3. Force Shut Down (press the power button for 10 seconds)

The Command key is the one with the 4-leaf cloverish symbol and the Apple symbol. On Mac OS the first option brings up a dialog that allows you to choose a running application and force it to quit. I know this same functionality exists in Windows, but I don't know if this key combination will trigger it. The 2nd and 3rd option ought to work regardless.

Yes, I googled but could not find anything relevant. Right click works, here, with 2- or 3-finger tapping and the synaptics driver in X. I'll try to "force reboot" when I reboot in linux.

At least "force shut down" works, that's what I was doing. But it is not too good for the filesystem. Ctrl-command-power could very well be what I was looking for.

Thank you!

[EDIT] just tried:
Control-Command-Power pops up a menu (in gnome) asking me if I want to log out or restart, this comes from acpi and gnome-power-manager finding I press the power button (it does not care about ctrl-cmd-)

Also, I have
case "$group" in
button)
case "$action" in
power)
/sbin/init 0
;;


in /etc/acpi/default.sh, but it does not seem to be going to init 0

No luck...