Dave Lee writes:

>> This doesn't work when the machine is completely unresponsive and
>> you want to reboot the junk and give it a chance to sync the disks
>> before (which hitting the reset or power button does not do, naturally).
>
>if this is the case, wont ctrl-alt-del fail too?

Sorry, with "completely unresponsive", I meant user process space
of course (like, machine is overloaded and trashing along or somesuch).
The kernel interrupt routines, which ultimately map onto the console
driver (which would recognize the keystrokes and initiate the reboot)
are always kindof realtime and thus would not be affected.

--mkb