[Techtalk] System running, but unresponsive

[Miriam English]

If she gets a Puppy Linux CD she can boot on it and use it until a 
solution for Ubuntu is found.
http://www.puppylinux.com

Being able to use Puppy would also eliminate hardware as the problem. I 
know the computer stopped responding to mouse and keyboard after 
updating, but that could possibly be a coincidence -- if the hardware is 
going to fail it will always fail after something, which will not 
necessarily be causally connected.

It would let her use all her files, gain access to the net, play music 
and videos, edit documents, use spreadsheets, and so on. She can save 
her settings for Puppy to the hard drive in a single save-file if she 
wishes or start Puppy fresh each time. Puppy won't write anything to the 
hard drive unless she tells it to.

Puppy Precise uses the Ubuntu repositories for its software, Puppy 
Slacko uses the Slackware repositories. There are also specialised Puppy 
repositories too. There are many Puppy variants, but those are the two 
main forms at the moment.

Good luck,

	- Miriam

David Sumbler wrote:
> I have an elderly friend who no longer has a car and can walk very
> little.  Without her computer, she is rather cut off.
>
> I had a letter from her this morning (by post) saying that her computer
> (a laptop with Ubuntu 10.04) is not functioning, and briefly describing
> the symptoms.  She had updated some software using Update Manager and
> the computer needed to be rebooted.  But after the reboot the computer
> would not respond to the keyboard nor to mouse clicks.
>
> I can still ssh to her computer, and I can see her desktop using Remote
> Desktop Viewer; but sure enough, although I can move the mouse pointer,
> the computer is otherwise unresponsive.
>
> Unfortunately my friend lives 5 hours drive away from me, and there will
> be absolutely no opportunity for me to visit her for at least the next 6
> weeks.  I can suggest to her that she send the computer to me in the
> next day or two, and I'll then perhaps install Ubuntu 12.04 or even
> 14.04.
>
> But can anyone suggest things I can try first, via ssh, which might
> discover and solve the problem?
>
> David
>
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>

-- 
If you don't have any failures then you're not trying hard enough.
  - Dr. Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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