Episode: 4137
Title: HPR4137: I used reisub key sequence to reboot my frozen Linux computer
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4137/hpr4137.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 20:06:23

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4137 for Tuesday 11 June 2024.
Today's show is entitled, I used Rice of Key Sequence to reboot my Frozen Linux computer.
It is hosted by Henrik Hemrin and is about three minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, a Frozen Linux computer can safely be reboot with the Rice of Key Sequence.
Welcome to Hacker Public Radio.
My name is Henrik Hemrin and I am your host today.
In two earlier episodes I have been talking about DigiCam Photo Management Software.
I hope to come back to that topic in another episode in the future.
But not today.
Because today I want to talk about what happened to me about two weeks ago.
Maybe it happened because I had used the hibernate state which I rarely use.
That caused my laptop to behave somewhat strange.
So I decided to turn it off.
It was my Lenovo Thinkpad T460P laptop running Linux Mint Debian Edition.
So I turned it off the normal way with the soft button inside the operating system.
But instead of power off, I was shown a full terminal screen with a lot of text what it was doing.
But the laptop never came to the conclusion to turn off.
I have learned that in those situations, although tempting that on Linux I should not force
to turn off with a physical mechanical power button.
I have tried that before on another other Linux laptop and it was not the success rather the opposite.
What I should do with Linux is to talk with Alex Trudge directly to the central brain or in other words
call the Linux kernel with help of a system request and by that side step the operating system.
A system request is done with a sysrq key on the keyboard.
In this situation, I did the raise-up key sequence with a system request.
I hold down the system request key together with the alternate ALT key.
And when still holding them down, I type the letters R, E, I, S, U and B.
One by one in a very slow pace.
I take seconds between them.
Then I release all keys.
And the machine reboots.
This was very successful for me and the laptop has since then worked as normal.
I use a full-size keyboard that has a system request key.
But not all laptops has such a key anymore.
However, system requests can be reached also on all or most laptops with some key combination.
But that key combination varies between manufacturers and models.
In the show notes I add a link to a how-to-geek article about the raise-up sequence
as well as to Wikipedia about system request.
Thank you for listening, take care and goodbye.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
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On this otherwise status, today's show is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.