Ubuntu – How to give control over keyboard back to X server after Alt + SysRq + R trick

keyboard-layoutsysrqxorg

Situation: an application freezes the X server and no keyboard input works. So I use Alt+SysRq+R to take the keyboard out of raw mode (make the kernel take control of the keyboard away from the X server). I can then type Ctrl+Alt+F1, kill the bad processes, and everything works again. So far so good.

But the keyboard is still in the hands of the kernel, making Alt+Left/Right shortcuts for Decr_Console/Incr_Console. This is annoying, and I want to give control over the keyboard back to the X server.

I have tried typing Alt+SysRq+R again, this does not switch things back. I have also tried the command kbd_mode -u, but nothing changes.

Any advice?

Best Answer

sudo kbd_mode -s -C /dev/tty7

Eventually you have to change the console path, if your X server is running on a different virtual terminal.

Source: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/19296/recovering-from-sys-rq-r

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