> But sometimes X gets stuck in a way that makes me unable to switch to another virtual console This is the situation where I recommend the Magic-SysRq[0] keys

> But sometimes X gets stuck in a way that makes me unable to switch to another virtual console This is the situation where I recommend the Magic-SysRq[0] keys. Alt+SysRq+r (on a system where /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq is configured) transfers keyboard control back to the kernel. There are other Magic-SysRq keys. My personal favourite is the one that invokes the OOMKiller; and there's one for remounting all filesystems read-only, and one for unconditionally rebooting the system. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key