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top or htop in the terminal

Do you know of a more low-level solution for when when my system is frozen, and the keystroke to open terminal (and run htop or "killall APPNAME") doesn't do anything?

After you get to tty using ctrl alt F. killall sends a TERM signal by default. You could send a KILL signal using "killall -KILL APPNAME". You could also run top using the nice command: "nice -20 top" in order to get the highest priority possible for the top process.

Try ctrl+alt+f1 to switch to the first terminal (leave desktop)

ctrl+alt+f7 to go back to desktop

this will work only if it's Xorg that has crashed.

For a kernel panic or lockup I think it's a combination roughly similar to:

1. Ctr-Alt-PrintScreen

2. continue to hold Alt

3. R-I-S-U-B as a sequence, to make certain things happen and like syncing the file system

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