Did your XFCE crash during apt-get dist-upgrade and apt-get is now still running and waiting for your input? reptyr to the rescue:

reptyr is a utility for taking an existing running program and attaching it to a new terminal. Started a long-running process over ssh, but have to leave and don’t want to interrupt it? Just start a screen, use reptyr to grab it, and then kill the ssh session and head on home.

Luckily gcc and make was installed, so I could build it ;).