If you try out the latest Ubuntu Jaunty (which is not officially out yet, and I would not recommend for your main machine, where you do important stuff on… seriously, get Intrepid or Hardy if you want something stable), you might be surprised by the fact that you can’t bail out of X with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace anymore…
Apparently some people thought it was too easy to trigger by mistake, and now it’s disabled by default. That of course isn’t that bad.. but there’s no easy way to enable it again. No GUI tool, nothing. (there is a hard way if you want, though)
Now, granted, you can just switch to a tty, log in, and restart the X Server from there (well, if that still works… if the X Server is under much stress switching to a tty might not work as expected), but Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is much more convenient and will work in most cases, and might save you from a forced reboot if that works and switching to a tty does not. It has it’s uses, and is usually needed in an emergency if the X Server starts misbehaving.
So, here’s hoping that they implement a GUI tool so you can start using Ctrl-Alt-Backspace if you want again, without editing scary configuration files.
I have to say that I kind of agree with this – Ubuntu’s practically being advertised as the user-friendliest distro on the planet. It’s designed for your average computer user instead of an experienced Linux user.
@tuntis: Well.. yeah, though your average user is not going to switch to a tty, log in, then type sudo /etc/init.d/gdm && logout and wait for X to restart..
Okay, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is not documented, BUT restarting X from the command-line ALSO isn’t. So what is the average user going to do? Nothing.. they’re just going to complain that Linux crashed on them.
However, for the average user pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace in case of X issues, instead of switching to a tty and doing all that, is going to be much easier to teach and much more understandable for them.
That doesn’t change the issue that they could still randomly trigger it. I think there should be some kind of *easy GUI tool* to make the command available for use again, though.
@tuntis: yup, but there are a number of alternatives for that issue.. What could be implemented is a delay time, requiring you to hold Ctrl-Alt-Backspace for at least X second before triggering, or requiring you to press it X times before triggering.
I’m all in favor of preventing accidental data loss, but IMHO you should still be able to kill X with a hotkey if it’s under great stress and nothing else responds anymore.
Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will not always work if your X is using too much CPU. So if there is still some processing power left, switching to a framebuffer terminal and doing sudo init 3 or finding your hanging application and killing it, is not much different from using Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. Besides, you can still have your X and other running applications in perfect condition if you manage to kill the misbehaving application.
PS – Re-enabling the function is also trivial. Period. If you get to find out about Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, editing xorg.conf to add just one line should be something you can do in a heartbeat.
@Paul: yup, but Ctrl-Alt-F1 will not always work in some cases where Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will still work, and vice versa.. I’ve experienced both.
As for the re-enabling being trivial, yes, of course, it should be easy for a reasonably experienced user to do that, but not everyone likes editing configuration files when doing this through a GUI is just so much easier and has less chance of messing things up.
So if you’ve experienced both, can you tell when to use one or the other?
@Paul: Not really, I usually try Ctrl-Alt-Backspace first, and if that fails, try switching to a tty.
A simple GUI to re-enable Ctrl+Alt+Backspace and change some other preferences is in the works.
That change is really trivial. You want me to make a GUI app that is 15 pixels high and has a single checkbox?
And I try using SSH from another PC to kill X if it ever really acts up
Editing one line in a file is ‘hard’? :S
@danopia: Apparently one is already being made
@CodeBlock: ‘Hard’ is relative
I’m definitely against the removal of the ctrl-del-backspace in Ubuntu. People might point out that it’s supposed to be the easiest distro to use — I disagree. It’s supposed to offer a medium between easy to use and power.
How many people really want it removed? Infact… how can you accidentally hit ctrl-alt-backspace? Anyways, regardless they should at least have a tickbox somewhere that makes it easy to disable/enable.
I fail to see how this is a step forward in ease of use.
If you’re someone who wants this functionality and knows it exists, you shouldn’t be that shy of adding 3 lines to a text file. Anyways, if you didn’t know it existed, you’re more likely to accidentally hit it then wonder what happened. I’ve confused several people who are new to linux just by switching between virtual terminals.
#Add to xorg.conf
Section “ServerFlags”
Option “DontZap” “false”
EndSection
Another way to enable this feature again is to run “dontzap –disable” (plus one more string to install dontzap package). So it’s even 2 strings and no configs at all
Wow, what a dumb post. First of all this has nothing to do with Ubuntu. This was implemented by the Xorg team, and exists on every Linux distro using the latest xorg server.
Secondly, if using: “sudo dontzap -d” is too difficult, then you should buy a Mac.
I disagree with the blocking of it by default, but come on, a GUI necessary for a three-word command?
@jon: This blog post is 5 months old. To my knowledge, the command “dontzap -d” (and the dontzap package) did not exist at that point. Which would leave editing configuration files to make this change as only option.
Found this post because I also had the same problem with Jaunty. And I’ve never in my entire life accidentally pressed that key combo. Changing defaults is annoying.
Lets just hope we won’t accidentaly press combo’s like:
[alt][sysrq][b] or any other sysrq
[alt][f4] meaning to switch to desktop four but instead have your focussed application closed
or the power button
I must admit that I invested some time to change the [ctr] [alt] [del] combo to [del][end][pagedown] so I can hit in on windows with just one fist