F11: xorg decision to disable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

[Giancarlo Niccolai]

Anders Rayner-Karlsson wrote:
> * Rodd Clarkson <rodd at clarkson.id.au> [20090331 03:56]:
>   
>> On Mon, 2009-03-30 at 10:55 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>>     
> [snip]
>   
>>> I don't think it is appropriate content for release notes since it isn't
>>> useful to lead users to read a few threads with hundreds of mails in
>>> that context. Fedora release notes is not Fedora Weekly News.
>>>       
>> I'm not suggesting that you put all these threads into the release
>> notes, just a url so that hopefully people will read the discussion
>> already had (and then hopefully avoid having the same fruitless
>> convesation again).
>>     
>
> You have an excessive amount of faith in people. This discussion will
> be had again (and again), probably by mostly the same people, once
> it's rolled out in a release. Same arguments, same flames, possibly a
> different list.
>   
I rarely step in threads, so forgive me for this once.

Good computing => "least surprise effect".
People coming from windows => ctrl+alt+<fumble>bs  "OH CRAP --- I am so 
XXXX I forgot to save my work files in 15 Word (ops, Openoffice) windows 
in the past 3 days!!!!"
People knowing their systems and just upgrading => x blocked =>  
ctrl+alt+bs ... ctrl+alt+bs... "what the..." ... CTRL+ALT+BS. "OH SHIT 
-- I got to hard reboot loosing all the work on console sessions and 
possibly fucking up that crap of XXXX filesystem the installer forced me 
to use!!!!"

If you think that some of the old users not sticking with this mailing 
list will ever get to know you're taken a so relevant decision (i.e. by 
carefully reading a changelog) you're very probably wrong. They expect 
not to be surprised.

SO, if you want to make a so relevant decision, the only viable ways not 
to get existing users "surprised" (and one (more) step towards other 
distros) are:
1) leave it as it always been; the programmers of the old say "if it's 
not broken, don't fix it" (this is truly the way of the Tao); or
2) have a BIG BOX warning about the change and how to put it as it was 
before; but preferabily
3) have a BIG BOX with a BIG BUTTON during installation asking "do you 
REALLY want to disable the life-saver ctrl+alt+bs sequence that saved 
your system from total hang so many times in the past?"

My two cents.

Giancarlo Niccolai.