Linux and boring elephants

Linux is a wonderful operating system. But let's face it, even wonderful operating systems can sometimes lock up or freeze. Have you ever experienced that? I have.

So what to do when nothing responds any more? Most logical option: press power until the machine switches off. Unfortunately you risk corruption on the disks. Usually nothing bad, and fsck will be able to correct that, but it's not funny.

There is a better way, using boring elephants.

The Linux kernel has an option you can always reach after switching the system to "raw" mode. How do you do that?

Press left-alt + sys-req (aka print screen) + r

After that, repeat the left-alt + sys-req set with e, i, s, u and b.

What does this do?

R:  Switch to XLATE / raw mode
E:  Send Terminate signal to all processes except for init
I:  Send Kill signal to all processes except for init
S:  Sync all mounted file-systems
U:  Remount file-systems as read-only
B:  Reboot

It's very bad with your Linux setup if this doesn't properly close and restart your system.

How do you remember this sequence? Here's where the elephants come in.

Raising Elephants Is So Utterly Boring. (Note: I have no experience with raising elephants, so this should be taken with some salt).

Another way to remember this is thinking of BUSIER backwards, because the system is in fact busier than it should be.

Always start with R, and always end with U and B. That's important to keep things as sane as possible. The other keys can be used as you will, so if you have a favourite way to remember it, use that.

Important! After pressing a key combination, wait a few seconds before proceeding. Your computer will need some time to process the command, so don't interrupt it while it's saving you!

(source: askubuntu.)