F11: xorg decision to disable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

[Callum Lerwick]

On Sun, 2009-03-29 at 19:26 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 01:16:10PM -0500, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> > On Sun, 2009-03-29 at 18:01 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> > > No. The patch was written and committed by Daniel Stone, who is not an 
> > > Ubuntu developer. The issue was discussed with the Fedora X maintainers 
> > > before it was merged. Everyone involved agreed that not having a 
> > > keystroke that caused immediate data loss was a sensible idea.
> > 
> > So we're disabling ctl-alt-del too?
> 
> No, since working at the console isn't an interesting desktop use case.
>
> > If killing the X server is causing data loss, then there's a bug in your
> > applications. In fact, that's an argument for ctl-alt-bs to be a regular
> > part of applications testing.
> 
> I don't know about you, but I prefer my text editors not to save to disk 
> on every keystroke.

Well, I know for one Vim has crash recovery. And so does OpenOffice. And
so does Evolution. This is not a new concept.

> > ... And still doesn't address the fact that the key combo could be
> > changed to something more obscure rather than disabling it completely.
> 
> What do you suggest? I'm serious here, if there's a genuinely 
> implausible key combination then it's not going to be rejected out of 
> hand - but I haven't been able to come up with one, and I haven't seen 
> any good suggestions.

Now we're getting somewhere. First we might want to lay down some
criteria:

1) Not every keyboard is a PC-101 (or 104). We run on non-PC platforms
too. Example: My Rev C iMac keyboard has left ctl alt and command (maps
as the "windows key") but only command on the right side. I've run in to
PC laptops that don't have all modifiers on the right either. Laptops
typically don't have real number pads.

2) It would be best to avoid "word" or even symbol keys, to avoid keymap
problems. International users will probably appreciate this.

3) The average person has ten fingers, ten toes and a nose.

4) At some point you exceed the keyboard's rollover capability...

So, how about:

ctl-alt-shift-backspace
ctl-alt-shift-backspace-tab
ctl-alt-shift-enter-spacebar
ctl-alt-shift-capslock-enter-backspace
ctl-alt-lshift-rshift-backspace
ctl-alt-lshift-rshift-backspace-tab
ctl-alt-lshift-rshift-enter-spacebar
ctl-alt-lshift-rshift-capslock-enter-backspace
ctl-alt-lshift-rshift-capslock-backspace-enter-tab-spacebar

... Do I really need to go on? Pick something. :P
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