How to Kill a crashed GUI in Ubuntu Linux
This is an oldie but worth mentioning in case you don't know. To kill the GUI, for whatever reason, such as a crash, hit Ctrl + Alt + Backspace. There's no warning dialog boxes when you do this - any open applications will be terminated, and data lost. You'll be returned to the GNOME
login screen, where you can login afresh.
If you're working on a virtual console and want to kill the GUI for any reason, typing the following will kill GNOME Display Manager (gdm), which "owns" the desktop processes:
$ sudo killall gdm
To get the GUI back following this, start gdm again:
$ sudo gdm
Related Articles