> the situation is like this: I run one application when I suddenly notice that > in the background the whole desktop disappears, meaning the desktop icons, > the control panes and even the window's frame (with the resize buttons) which > I guess is controled by KDE/xwindows. .. > There is no key stroke that I found that could bring up any dialog box or at > least allow me to shut down properly. crt+alt+dek doesn't help either. Hmmm. If even C.A.D. won't work, then the system is very much banged up. You prolly can't do a ctrl-alt-f2 to get to a new command window? If you can do that, log in as root, do a ps -ef and try to locate the pid of the programs that are making the mess. Then kill -9 these PID's. > At that point the only solution is to make a hard shut down. On startup the > kernel of course complains that devices were not properly unmounted. > I get a series of messages saying things like: > i-blocks is 64, should be 8. FIXED. THis is normal after such a hard reboot > So I guess it's a problem with the windows environement. I thought linux was > more stable than windows. > > I now have three questions: > 1- how do I manage to shut down properly, should that happen again? > 2- what can I do to help diagnostic what is the source of the problem? > 3- and of course, how can I fix the problem? You should first try to find out what the offending program (or combination of programs) is. Also check if all the hardware in the computer is fit for Linux (no memory with different speeds etc.) What is the hardware you have? hth Paul
