[17678] in Athena Bugs
Re: linux 8.3.28: XFree86
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Travis C Furrer)
Fri Mar 17 12:39:58 2000
Message-Id: <200003171739.MAA22112@mint-square.mit.edu>
To: Jacob Morzinski <jmorzins@MIT.EDU>
cc: tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG), Travis C Furrer <furrer@MIT.EDU>,
bugs@MIT.EDU, Jonathon Weiss <jweiss@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "17 Mar 2000 04:53:05 EST."
<w6maejxkjni.fsf@oliver.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 12:39:51 -0500
From: Travis C Furrer <furrer@MIT.EDU>
Jacob has eloquently captured exactly what I was originally thinking
regarding the zapping.
I can see that having the keystroke is useful in some cases that would
otherwise require a reboot to log out. I would be nice, however, if the
key combination were the same on all platforms. By the way, what are
those magic keys to zap X on irix?
Thanks,
Travis
> <tb@MIT.EDU> (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:
> > Travis C Furrer <furrer@MIT.EDU> writes:
> > > What's wrong:
> > > The Ctrl-Alt-Bkspc feature is enabled (The DontZap option
> > > in /etc/X11/XF86Config is not enabled).
> >
> > I'm not sure why that's a bad thing. Could you elaborate?
>
> I think Travis's point was not "do we want to have a keystroke
> that kills the X server?", but was instead "do we want to have the
> keystroke that kills the X server to be so easy to mistakenly hit?"
> The Irix machines have a "kill the X server" key combination
> that is near-impossible to accidentally type. The Linux key
> combination is so easy to accidentally type that it should be
> disabled.
>
> My personal typing habits cause me to mistakenly hit
> Ctrl-Alt-BackSpace about once every two months, even though I
> know about it and try not to type it. Most of the time, the
> machine has DontZap, and I don't get hurt. But users who don't
> know about it will probably be more likely to hit it
> accidentally. We shouldn't make it too easy for unsuspecting
> users to hurt themselves.
>
> -Jacob
