Recent xorg has disabled the use of the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. Please patch it to allow killing X this way again. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. start X 2. hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace Actual Results: nothing happens Expected Results: X gets killed From what I've read, this is intentional upstream decision, because some users of the EMACS operating system were too ham-handed to hit the proper keys, and they unintetionally killed their X from time to time. So, the majority of the normal users got terrorized by this minority, by disallowing feature that existed long before EMACS. This sucks. There exist special keyboards for fat fingered people, all the major desktop environments support dozens of features making the life of the disabled people easier, yet those cripples[1] choose not to use those possibilities and rather disallow the other people to use what they wish to use. Yes, I know I can allow this shortcut again within X configuration file, but ... a) there is non-trivial number of systems that do not use the configfile at all, as xorg supports autodetection pretty well for quite a time (and yes, there are valid reasons to use the autodetection, like un/docking notebooks) b) it really sucks to have the default set to something which causes trouble to several order of magnitude higher number of users than it helps [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple - "A cripple is a person or animal with a physical disability ... In other English-speaking countries, the term is still widely used without pejorative connotations." - yes, I'm not politically correct not avoiding words known to be felt offensive by some ... hell, I'd not be able to use any words then, because everything can be considered pejorative somewhere (just ask about troubles with car model names :-))
That's why I documented all the possible ways of re-enabling Zapping in the Upgrade Guide. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/x/x11/xorg-server-1.6-upgrade-guide.xml And no, I won't change the default because I happen to think it's a good decision with easy ways to change it. Thanks
> And no, I won't change the default because I happen to think it's a good > decision with easy ways to change it. For Gentoo users and other advanced users it's imho not a good decision. It's just assuming that users don't know what they're doing. If you want to use it, fine. Make it an option, not the default. Especially if hasn't been the default for years. Seriously I don't get what the X11 devs thought when they did this. Add the option to disable it and Ubuntu and Co can disable it by default if they want by adding an option to the conf file.
(In reply to comment #1) > That's why I documented all the possible ways of re-enabling Zapping in the > Upgrade Guide. > > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/x/x11/xorg-server-1.6-upgrade-guide.xml thankyou for the link, I wasn't aware of the HAL method, recent docs led me just to http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/x/x11/xorg-server-1.5-upgrade-guide.xml that doesn't mention this however ... > And no, I won't change the default because I happen to think it's a good > decision with easy ways to change it. could you elaborate on this please, why do you think that it is a good decision to remove features, especially those very important ones, that had been here for decades? and btw, a) "easy ways to change it" can be used the other way round, why the minority of users that don't want the X getting killed on hitting the shortcut just don't disable it, why to make it default for all? b) IMO, those are not that easy - either you have to use xorg.conf, which is unpleasant, as stated above, or you have to utilize HAL, which creates more trouble than it solves (don't tell me about keeping my printer working between all the updates ...)
I won't have that discussion again because the X community already had that debate a few months ago when the change was made and it turned out to be a huge flame war. My _personal_ preference in this matter is that, while Zapping is a feature I enable on all my systems, it is still a dangerous feature that allows loosing data far too easily. But that's just _my_ view. My _official_ position on this is that I do not wish to change upstream defaults. Nor do I want to introduce a "vanilla" USE flag for X packages. What we ship in Gentoo will be as close as possible to what upstream ships: it makes my job easier and it allows to find/report bugs upstream much more quickly. xf86-input-synaptics has some default settings which upset some users, I have no intention of changing them either, for the very same reason. I do intend to improve our documentation to make it clear how to change those settings. I very well understand why you might be upset about this decision but please do try to see thing from my point of view as well. Thanks
sorry to bother again, but ... http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/x/x11/xorg-server-1.6-upgrade-guide.xml If you use HAL to manage input devices, copy the following HAL fdi snippet into the fdi file from /etc/hal/fdi/policy/ which you use to control your keyboard. <merge key="input.xkb.options" type="string">terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp</merge> If you do not have any custom keyboard rules, you can copy and adapt rules from /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-x11-input.fdi ok, I don't have any custom keyboard rules, so I do cp /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-x11-input.fdi /etc/hal/fdi/policy/ now I put the line <merge key="input.xkb.options" type="string">terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp</merge> somewhere (where?) into /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-x11-input.fdi but, as far as I understand, the settings in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-x11-input.fdi override those in /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-x11-input.fdi so if /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-x11-input.fdi gets improved on upgrade (there's a big "FIXME" ATM ...), this change won't get applied - do I get it right? - if yes then how to get around this problem? p.s. as for the flamewar, well, the users were told that changing upstream default is not a problem, because the distros can override it - now I can't find any distro that dares to diverge from upstream, oh my ... (I understand your position on this and in no way I'm saying it is not a reasonable decision, while still upsetting me - for example, text mode doesn't work on one of my systems, so if my graphics locks up (which happens from time to time: nvidia + KDE4 ...), without reenabling the shortcut, there's no other way than ctrl+alt+del ... I wonder how long will it take until it gets disabled too) p.p.s. and as for your personal opinion on losing the data too easily, it happened to me once that I stepped on a power switch of the extension cord for my computer, blewing up my work and damaging the filesystem - does that justify forcing the extension cord makers not to provide power switches on them, saying that each user can purchase separate power switch and hack his extension cord to include it?
No, you should not copy files from /usr/share/hal, you should copy the sample files from /usr/share/doc/hal-*/ as mentioned in the upgrade guide. If you still have issues, please file a separate bug and we'll sort it out. Thanks
