Thank you for explanation :) I suspected something like that - mess up with some internals, you do have a chance to bring the thing down. Which is why I always have a bootable usb around before doing anything risky

Uhm, zero? With ten years of using Linux? What did you do to fuck up the damn kernel? o_O

Around ten years ago, Ubuntu, my first time using Linux. Press Ctrl+Alt+Fsomething, drop to bash, run vlc videofile (Mylene Farmer Ennamoramento clip) - and the damn thing works! It plays video with ASCII graphics out of the box!

Stayed with Linux ever since, I just love that this is something I can actually learn and tinker with