F11: xorg decision to disable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

[Joonas Sarajärvi]

2009/3/28 Gerry Reno <greno at verizon.net>:
> Joonas Sarajärvi wrote:
>>
>> 2009/3/28 Dan Nicholson <dbn.lists at gmail.com>:
>>
>>>
>>> 2009/3/28 Joonas Sarajärvi <muepsj at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Of course, the world isn't perfect, and there probably is need for a
>>>> global shortcut to kill or restart X, among other things. However, it
>>>> would be nice if X eventually got rid of everything ctrl-alt-something
>>>> (Zap, vt switches, resolution changes, etc.) , so that the
>>>> combinations could be used for more useful purposes, and replaced them
>>>> with less intrusive ones, if any, as default.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That system is called XKB. You can remap keys to your heart's desire.
>>>
>>
>> I know that I can configure and tweak my system to my heart's content,
>> but I rather get used to the default settings where it makes sense. It
>> eases life with multiple computers, as well as helping others to use
>> the same software.
>>
>> I just think that the traditional X shortcuts are not a very good
>> solution to a problem, and a better one could be developed.
>
> The traditional  three-keystroke combination of Ctrl-Alt-Backspace has been
> working successfully for decades.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with
> this keysequence.  It is one of the most unlikely keysequences that a
> general X user is ever going to hit accidentally.  It is only the tiny Emacs
> community with their very similar keystroke combinations that has ever had
> any problems with accidentally tripping this keystroke combination.   And
> it's not fair to the general Xorg community that a historical
> well-understood and expected default should be disabled all in the interest
> of one tiny subcommunity.

My support for support the X.org developers' decision isn't due to my
Emacs usage. I just think it's a better design to not have the Zap
function enabled as default.

I think leaving the zap function disabled is very much in line with
the general character of Fedora. In past, we have many times replaced
old, de-facto ways of doing things with new, innovative solutions and
decision. In Fedora 10, the default vt for X was changed from vt 1 to
vt 7, despite many arguments similar to yours, and despite that it
could potentially confuse some experienced users. Especially now that
this isn't even a Fedora decision but an upstream one, it would in my
opinion seem a bit odd if Fedora did override that decision. The X
developers seem to think that the system should work so well that
there would be no need for a magic key combo for killing the server. I
think that's quite optimistic and forward-looking, which is mindset
that Fedora also happens to follow quite often.

>> I don't
>> know any perfect solutions, but in my opinion, it is good that some of
>> the most obtrusive shortcuts are already (possibly) getting a
>> non-default status.
>>
>> While I haven't lost any important work due to X.org zapping, I fail
>> to see why a modern graphics system should have many keyboard
>> shortcuts itself in such prominent places.
>>
>> I am also an Emacs user, though I haven't yet figured what control in
>> Emacs is close to ctrl-alt-backspace. Maybe it's the Finnish layout
>> that has something positioned more favourably...
>>
>
> Try Ctrl-Alt-End or Ctrl-Alt-\.  Emacs users can easily mistakenly type
> Ctrl-Alt-Backspace when attempting these keystrokes especially on laptops.
>  But again, that doesn't mean we need to change default behaviors.  What it
> means is that the Emacs community needs to prepare special xorg.conf entries
> for their purpose of disabling Ctrl-Alt-Backspace for them and not pushing a
> huge change on the massive overall Xorg community.

I haven't probably ever used those commands in Emacs.


-- 
Joonas Sarajärvi
muepsj at gmail.com