Ho to kill locked programs...
 

I recently had a full-screen game stop responding. The mouse moved around fine so the system wasn't locked but I couldn't switch desktops, use ctrl+alt+esc, ctrl+z, ctrl+c, ctrl+esc, ctrl+alt+del, alt+f4, alt+tab or right-click. I had to power-cycle my box to get back to KDE.

How do you deal with a situation like that?

Ted.

You can hit ctrl + alt + f2-f6 to switch to a new terminal then login as root and kill the process hope that helps

You can try to get back to a console with <CTRL>+<ALT>+<Fn-#> (where # is 1 to 6), or you can try to kill the xserver with <CTRL>+<ALT>+<BACKSPACE>

edit:changed from incorrect <CTRL>+<BACKSPACE>.

Hmm, I tried ctrl+Fn (1-12) but I did not try it with ctrl+alt+Fn. I will try that next time.

Thanks for the help.

Ted.

Crap. Also should be <CTRL>+<ALT>+<BACKSPACE>

Oh, I tried ctrl+alt+backspace, didn't work. Good suggestion though. That is one of my favorite key combos.

Have a good one,
Ted.

What kinda games are you running? games like UT2003 or games though wine and winex or just basic Linux games like solitare, Open GL games? stuff like that. cause it might be a driver issue

I was just playing Rocks and Diamonds. It only locked up once. Never has before or since. I think some other process locked causing the game to lock but I'll probably never know which one.

Ted.