Jonathan McDowell wrote:

Pet hate. It's Jonathan. That's the most common way of spelling the name. There are some Jonathon's but they're vastly in the minority. Sorry about that.

...

Will I have to crash out here? Bum. If you have Magic SysRQ support compiled in try: ALT-SysRQ-r and see if that helps. If it doesn't: ALT-SysRQ-s ALT-SysRQ-u to sync and remount reonly the disks. Or if you can log in remotely: reset < /dev/tty1 perhaps.

No ctl-alt-del, no response from ALT-SysRQ-*, can't log in remotely, connection refused. Can't ping from other boxes. Can't log in blind as no response from many keys, including the "n" key which all my passwords contain. Cold reboot and box is still behaving the same - i.e. can't do anything with it. I don't understand - I go home leaving it switched on, come back next morning and it is kaput. Don't tell me there is no solution except a reinstall? Why me? I think I'll give up computers and take up the bass again. :-( Or take up absailing. Bricklaying. Cycling. Knitting. Jen.