F8: Package Manager - desktop stalled

[David Timms]

Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> Daniel B. Thurman writes:
>> I cannot even access the F1 or anything to see what is going on.
>>
>> What can I do at this point except perhaps to do a forced system
>> reboot?  Isn't there something I can do before attempting such a
>> drastic move?
> 
> If you can't even move the cursor and your entire desktop is frozen, 
> either your entire kernel, or X.org, has crashed. This has nothing to do 
> with the package manager.
> 
> The only thing you can do is reboot.
That is if the kernel crashed.

If x.org or something else is the problem:
- when you said F1 did you mean ctrl-alt-F1, F2 etc ?
- ctrl-alt-backspace should kill the current x session, causing the 
logon screen to be shown
- it might still be accessible from the network over ssh; sometimes 
using vnc might allow you to find what is going on, or at least capture 
screen shots, run top, check disk space, check external connectivity.
- next time you run package manager - start it from a terminal window, 
in case it is providing some sort of error messages.

DaveT.