the unthinkable has happened
 

Hey,

I cannot know how I am gonna say this, but here it goes:
Linux crashed! Don't tell the press yet.
I had left my computer open (which I usually do) and closed the monitor. When I came back and opened the screen again, I was shocked to see a black screen. Then I thought maybe it is in a power saving mode of some kind. Seeing the Caps-Lock and Scroll-lock lights blinking on the keyboard raised my concern. The three finger salute (that's the term for Ctrl-Alt-Del isn't it) didn't work either; thus I reset it manually from the case.
Things work now, thankfully I didn't have any open unsaved documents at that time, but this has been a terribly inconvenient event. What might be the reason? Do Linux log these activities somewhere so the user can read them and perhaps reinstall the app that caused this failure?

Thanks...

LOL, I'm pretty sure it's Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

Well it is even harder to hit ctrl - alt -backspace
Correct me if I'm wrong,but on older unix machines the delete key didn't exist. (I guess the Alt Gr didn't exist either, since it would be Alt Gr-Back-Ctrl then) So I think that's why it used to be backspace. Yet now that we got the *powerful* delete, we also got the "3 Finger Salute 2003!!" :)

Are you talking about a laptop ?
If so, that's "normal". Power states is not very well implemented on linux yet. Forget about suspend or try kernel 2.6.0

By the way, no one said linux never hangs on desktops.
Where linux is supposed to be unbreakable is on servers (always much proved hardware than desktops/laptops).
Once it is fully configured with the correct drivers, nothing can bring it down.

No I am not using a laptop, I got a desktop pc. Maybe that's why the power management system crashed? How can I disable this feature (if it is open of course)?
I have checked the kde control panel. Thereis a power management section there. However all the options seem to be disabled? Are there some more config files somewhere, or some daemons I'll have to uninstall?

yes.
There are two possibly power "models".
The one provided by ACPI, and the older one with APM.

You can turn off both of them by passing the kernel boot loader the lines "apm=off" and/or "acpi=off" (please, don't mix with "apic=off")

My case, using LILO (not GRUB):

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.0-test5
label=260-test5
root=/dev/hda1
read-only
optional
vga=790
append=" quiet devfs=mount idebus=66 apm=off acpi=force"

Ok, I use grub, so I guess the configuration is going to be somewhat different. I have checked the grub.conf file. This is the relevant section:
title Red Hat Linux 9
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

Now where should I add the properties you mentioned? At the end of the kernel /vmlinuz" line??

Thanks!

well, it seems like, but I don't use grub.
Just append them there and see what happens (although I'd google for "grub kernel command line", before).

put them at the end of the line that starts with kernel

Re: the unthinkable has happened
 

I think you've just had a kernel panic. :( If your kernel does down, you can't do anything at all. In a final attempt, the panic message is displayed at the active virtual terminal, sadly you can't see anything when you're in X.

In your case, it might be possible that your system tried to enter S3 power savings mode. (an acpi feature not supported by Linux) In the S3 state, your memory is saved to disk, and the system will be shut down.


* If your kernel is compiled with the magic-sysrq support, you can use Alt+SysRq when your system seams to be locked up (unless it's a kernel panic) See /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysrq.txt