Frozen system... Any suggestions to similar to Ctrl-alt-del to escape the quicksand on 3.8.1?

[stoppy98]

@triantares

Optionally you can login there in F1 as the user you want to and start an alternative desktop session running:

@IamElive

Any suggestions that could help me get back the system without hard shut down?

I usually just kill my user. If you logged in with lightdm killing lightdm should be enouhg, otherwise kill all your user's processes