Please revert Xorg decision to disable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

[Corbin Simpson]

Gerry Reno wrote:
> Dear Xorg community,
>   In reading the Release Notes for the Alpha version of Fedora 11 I 
> noticed a very disturbing change involving disabling the default 
> Ctrl-Alt-Backspace behavior of killing the X server.  This default 
> behavior has been able to be counted on by sysadmins for years as a 
> means of controlling the X server.  It is now part of a sysadmins DNA.  
> This default behavior is also relied upon by many tools especially 
> virtualization tools which have Ctrl-Alt-Backspace embedded in their 
> menu options and functions for controlling a virtual machines behavior.
> 
>   I read in the Fedora Release Notes the assertions that this change was 
> due to users complaining about confusion regarding the control key 
> sequences relating to the X server.  That argument was no doubt made by 
> some in the Emacs community who find that the Emacs key sequences are 
> similar to the Xorg sequences.  I will tell you that this argument about 
> confusion is totally bogus from an entire Linux community standpoint.  
> The Emacs community is miniscule in size comparison to the overall Linux 
> community.  In over thirty years of working with *nix systems and 
> thousands of users and machines not once has a user ever complained 
> about confusion or problems involving the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key 
> combination.  I am concerned because it appears that a tiny minority of 
> Emac users have managed to lobby for a very significant change in 
> default behavior for X server control to the detriment of the majority 
> of users and administrators in the Linux community.  Already there are a 
> number of angry threads popping up around the internet related to this 
> issue.  Please look at this particular thread that I started in the 
> Fedora Development forum:  http://marc.info/?t=123818605400006&r=2&w=2
> 
>   I am asking Xorg to immediately reconsider its decision with respect 
> to this change in default behavior regarding Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.  Please 
> revert this change.


Two things. First, I hate Emacs too. Second, you can disable the DontZap
server flag in xorg.conf with something like:

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "false"
EndSection

~ C.