On Gutsy and now Hardy, both installations have left me with having to do a ctrl alt backspace to do a hard logout in order to find a restart option that works. It just freezes all of the icons. I can't type. I can move the mouse, but clicking on stuff doesn't yield anything.

How can I fix this so when I click on shut down, it doesn't freeze, and I'm prompted with shut down/restart/logout/etc?

Edit:
Also - even though I enable my restricted driver, it says not in use. For the 2nd time today, Gutsy is getting put back on here.