Shortening the rope [LWN.net]

Shortening the rope

Posted Apr 4, 2009 12:54 UTC (Sat) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
In reply to: Shortening the rope by MisterIO
Parent article: Shortening the rope

> The (alt-control-backspace) is a very good example of something that shouldn't be a default config IMO.

I disagree for a technical reason: the only time I use "alt-control-backspace" is just after installation to trouble-shoot the X server,
so it makes sense to have it activated in the initial configuration,
which is what default settings are for.

Furthermore, it would be smarter to keep DontZap to No but to map
Terminate_Server to no key. This way you can enable/disable alt-control-backspace without changing xorg.conf or even being root.

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Shortening the rope

Posted Apr 4, 2009 19:45 UTC (Sat) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link]

I disagree for a technical reason: the only time I use "alt-control-backspace" is just after installation to trouble-shoot the X server, so it makes sense to have it activated in the initial configuration, which is what default settings are for.

You can always go to a terminal and kill it. Defaults are not 'initial settings supposed to be changed'. Defaults should be 'the setting that makes more sense, so that people won't have to change it'.

Shortening the rope

Posted Apr 5, 2009 19:40 UTC (Sun) by dambacher (subscriber, #1710) [Link]

I reconsidered the times I used CRTR-ALT-BACKSPACE: There were mostly two reasons to use it:

1) a program grabbed the keyboard and didn't let loose
2) a program grabbed the cpu and i was not able to open the terminal or switch console

In both cases I was happy to not holding down the power button for 3 seconds.

By the way: I never ever accidentally used ctrl-alt-backspace. I did run into an errorous rm -r in my base directiory though. But I learned from that...

Shortening the rope

Posted Apr 6, 2009 7:35 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

There is a grab-breaking key (which I forget) which you can use for the
first (also breaks server grabs, I think, not that those are used by
anyone, thank goodness).

Shortening the rope

Posted Apr 8, 2009 22:01 UTC (Wed) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]

There is a grab-breaking key (which I forget)

    Option "AllowDeactivateGrabs"

...and then ctrl-alt-[keypad]divide. (The latter is one of only two computer commands I have on a PostIt on my monitor. :-) )

Greg

Shortening the rope

Posted Apr 17, 2009 19:29 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Yeah, definitely gone in 1.6.x. Blast it.