[2931] in Release_7.7_team
Rationale for X-server kill discrepancy?; also mwm vs. sawfish
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Hawkinson)
Thu Sep 6 13:34:30 2001
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 13:34:27 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200109061734.NAA20484@multics.mit.edu>
To: release-team@mit.edu
From: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
Trigger: I just helped out a user in the cluster on a linux machine
for whom Netscape had grabbed the pointer and was hung in a popup
menu, such that the mouse moved but remained focussed to netscape, and
the clock updated and one could switch virtual consoles, etc.
Principal ancillary observations: On an SGI, you can use the
convenient X server kill function (which we have not disabled), and
easily enough logout (one must either then login and destroy tickets
or presume no one is going to try to steal them). On a Sun, you can
escape to the PROM and type in laborious code and kill the netscape
process and have everything be hunky-dory. On athena linux, one is
forced to reboot the workstation -- yes, one can do so relatively
cleanly, by switching to the first virtual console and pressing
ctl-alt-del.
Principal request: Can we enable the X server kill functionality on
Athena linux machines? It would restore parity with the IRIX machines
and make it easier to deal with this case a bit faster. I don't see
any real penalty associated with this, and it would speed things up
and make some kinds of borderline-impossible-for-non-wizards
recoveries easier.
Secondary observation: In quite a few scenarios like this, the errant
application (e.g., netscape) only grabs the pointer but not the
keyboard. In these cases, under mwm, it was easy enough to kill the
application by using the default keybindings (alt-esc and alt-space
and the arrow keys). Sawfish already has a binding for alt-esc, but
not for alt-space.
Secondary request: Can we add a compatible binding for alt-space to sawfish,
please? For "Popup window menu"?
Tertiary ancillary statement: Please do thwap me if this should be better
directed elsewhere than release-team.
--jhawk
