yeah, it's a common typo
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick May 17, 2009 1:39 PM EDT |
I hit accidental three-key hotkey combos at opposite sides of the keyboard all the time. Prolly should either disable all of them by default, or make them four-key combos to be really really sure that users really really mean to hit them. As an added bonus, make them so they have to be pressed twice within .75 and 1.0 seconds of each other. |
| caitlyn May 17, 2009 1:50 PM EDT |
I, for one, am just thrilled that the good people at Canonical are protecting us from the dangers presented by our keyboards. A new user certainly wouldn't know all the standard hotkey combinations and might accidentally do something unintended to his or her system and think that Linux is to blame. We all know that being dumped to a login screen or, worse, the dreaded command line is an absolute horror to be avoided at all costs. It's one of the things that make Linux overly geeky and hard to use. The fact that you have to go out of your way to hit those three keys is neither here nor there. Ubuntu should be congratulated by all for doing away with all that fiddly functionality and control of the system and making Linux far less likely to scare off the clueless. |
| tuxchick May 17, 2009 1:54 PM EDT |
It's a good thing that neither of us believes in being sarcastic. |
| caitlyn May 17, 2009 1:55 PM EDT |
Absolutely. The vaguest possibility hasn't even begun to permeate the outer reaches of my mind. |
| hkwint May 17, 2009 6:37 PM EDT |
Well, can I join and without being sarcastic at all, add to all this that I was really p-off Ctrl+Alt+Backspace always respawned some graphical session (GDM, KDM, XDM; I don't _want_ to know) even when I deliberately _wanted_ to use this to be thrown back at a console GUI, and this not working is one of the reasons I don't use Ubuntu? Probably not political enough for this forum I guess. Let me think how I can rephrase what I just said... |
| jdixon May 17, 2009 8:01 PM EDT |
> I was really p-off Ctrl+Alt+Backspace always respawned some graphical session (GDM, KDM, XDM; I don't _want_ to know) even when I deliberately _wanted_ to use this to be thrown back at a console GUI AFAIK, all the distros which default to a graphical login do this. I don't think Ubuntu is unique in that regard. I'd be pleased to be wrong. I think even Slackware does if you set it to use runlevel 4, though that's not the default. I also believe that all of the graphical login screens I've seen over the past few years have given me the option to go to a console instead of starting X, but it's been so long since I used one that I'm not certain. |
| azerthoth May 17, 2009 8:22 PM EDT |
Most of the ones I have used do, give it ctrl alt bkspc, and it restarts X. Even Gentoo defaults to that behavior if you have set up to use some graphical login manager. Most of the auto GUI distros I have played with require an explicit command to shutdown X, be it sending the init level, or something more elegant like /etc/init.d/xdm [stop/start/restart] |
| tracyanne May 17, 2009 8:40 PM EDT |
This helpful little tip screwed up my desktop, and didn't work anyway. |
| r_a_trip May 18, 2009 3:00 AM EDT |
Yeah, the useless dontzap option. You can re-enable it with putting this: Section “ServerFlags” Option “DontZap” “False” EndSection in your xorg.conf. At least that is the theory. It doesn't quite work on Jaunty. The really scary bit is this madness seems to have gone upstream in X.org. So next releases of other distro's will have to enable the "Zap" if they want to stay sane. If this push to please the click-and-drool zombies continues, I'll have to look in to Debian proper. |
| tracyanne May 18, 2009 3:57 AM EDT |
I installed contzap etc as described in the article did the restart, and it screwed my desktop, so I uninstalled dontzap and removed the config files, and restarted, and got my desktop back. Now alt + ctrl + backspace works properly. EDIT:: I hadn't noticed but part of my sentence was missing because I'd use angle brackets arouns ome of the words. |
| caitlyn May 18, 2009 8:02 AM EDT |
The new Mandriva has the "feature". |
| devnet May 18, 2009 1:22 PM EDT |
It's a good thing Windows protects their users in the same fashion....er...wait a second...you can still hit windows key and L and logout...CRAP!. Control Alt Delete still brings open a task manager and heaven forbid a new user see that!!! Their head would explode!!! I think this move is RETARDED on Canonical and Mandriva's part. This is part of the learning process..."what the heck did I push?" and you work to find out how you restarted your window session. I hate people making decisions how I should compute...it's the reason I stopped using Windows and it's the reason I stopped using Gnome (actually, Gnome was because I can't customize my right click menu without patching the entire DE). I sure hope they don't hard code it in X and make us patch it in later releases. What an atrocity this is...next thing they'll do is start removing tty's and cntrl-alt-esc...heathens. |
| azerthoth May 18, 2009 5:50 PM EDT |
You know this makes me wonder, I was going to write a how-to this weekend that I might have to modify for this little quirk they introduced. An old trick with X that is handy when your using apps that do not interact with desktop compositing so well sometimes. Things like pretty much anything that uses opengl or video processing (movie watching). Looks like I get to go spend some time trying to get through the noise in #ubuntu to get one of those folks to run a few commands and give me some feedback. Either that or just append with "Ubuntu users mileage may vary due to idiotic developer decisions" |
| hkwint May 18, 2009 7:41 PM EDT |
Quoting:Even Gentoo defaults to that behavior if you have set up to use some graphical login manager. But it doesn't default to a graphical login manager, meaning no problems for me. I made a script executed in my .profile with starts X at login for the local user if there is no lockfile. Meaning if X doesn't work I just have to login as root or twice to fix the problem; or use Ctrl+Alt+Backspace if possible. However, if it doesn't work in Ubuntu or Fedora for that part and the screen is borked and I can't do anything, I'm not sure how to proceed. Why do people need graphical logins anyway? |
| azerthoth May 18, 2009 10:08 PM EDT |
For the same reason as so many other windows users get themselves into trouble, and I quote : "OOOH Pretty" *click* |
| jdixon May 18, 2009 10:10 PM EDT |
> Why do people need graphical logins anyway? They don't, but some newbies seem to have a pathological fear of the command line, even if it's only to type startx. |
| Scott_Ruecker May 18, 2009 10:52 PM EDT |
I will say I prefer a graphical login, on a first login after an install it tells me the graphics card stands a chance of working decently..if it bumps me to a shell, lookout.. |
| caitlyn May 19, 2009 12:38 AM EDT |
I also like the display managers which allow you to select the desktop environment and/or window manager at login time. Even more important, I really like being able to set language/locale at login time. |
| gus3 May 19, 2009 1:16 AM EDT |
So, caitlyn, you like GDM? |
| caitlyn May 19, 2009 9:12 AM EDT |
Yes, I like GDM. I was also surprised to see that the latest Mandriva has a version of KDM with multilingual support. I thought that was forever broken in KDM but apparently it is no longer so. |
| techiem2 May 19, 2009 1:44 PM EDT |
lol. I guess I'm one of the odder ones here then.
I do pure text console login then use scripts that dynamically replace my .xinitrc to launch the de of my choice.
startX for xfce, startF for fluxbox, startK for KDE, etc. :P Then if I do something that totally screws up X and I do ctrl-alt-bk it happily drops me back to my console. |
| azerthoth May 19, 2009 3:14 PM EDT |
There is still the wonderful old trick to use X without a WM at all too. X :1 -ac -terminate & DISPLAY=:1 $whatEVERappYOUwantedGUIfor & I use 1 out of habit as I usually already have an X session on :0 Describing how to and when you might want to use that or a variation on that command is the topic of an upcoming how-to. Plus some odd things I have found in doing things with that. |
| caitlyn May 19, 2009 3:29 PM EDT |
techiem2: If you only use one language that isn't a problem. If you really need to change language and locale it is. Yes, that can be scripted. Have you ever taken a look at the scripts that underly gdm? It's all bash so you should be able to look at it and see what doing what you suggest on a multilingual system would mean. I started my career in a very international industry. Different departments supporting different parts of the world where we had significant business had to have native speakers and, later on, computers running that language. My own family is multilingual and for some languages (think non-Latin glyphs written right to left) it's just plain easier to deal with everything set for that language than trying to go back and forth. I'm older too but I recognize that in some cases the command line is NOT the best or easiest way to go. I realize that's heresy to some but I still believe that different tools suit different needs. |
| jdixon May 19, 2009 3:33 PM EDT |
> I do pure text console login then use scripts that dynamically replace my .xinitrc to launch the de of my choice. Slackware has a tool to do that for you, xwmconfig. Run it, select your desired desktop, then run startx. |
| tuxchick May 19, 2009 3:41 PM EDT |
Sigh. Once again a perfectly good snark thread has been derailed into a useful technical thread. I tell ya, you Lxerers are incorrigible. |
| caitlyn May 19, 2009 3:44 PM EDT |
Yep, Slackware does. I wrote a How-To for changing languages and locales in Slackware. It's anything but simple. See: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/01/making-slackware-and-de... I like a lot of things about Slackware. Somtimes their "keep it simple" approach means simple for the developer and a royal pain you know where for the user. This is a perfect example. |
| caitlyn May 19, 2009 3:46 PM EDT |
Yeah, tc, we're terrible. I started out snarky and look where I've ended up... It just goes to prove: "When there's a Will there's also a Tom, a Dick, and a Harry." (Let's see who gets the reference this time.) |
| tuxchick May 19, 2009 4:06 PM EDT |
Sounds like Mae West :) |
| caitlyn May 19, 2009 5:47 PM EDT |
The Doctor (seventh) from Doctor Who. Episode: "Time and the Rani" Just remember, "time and tide melts the snowman." |
| TxtEdMacs May 19, 2009 6:49 PM EDT |
This is impossible! Starts with a: Snark ->> Serious Discussion ->>> Useful Input ->>>> Solutions!! That's NOT the LXer Way, with endless off topic posts and stepping over the TOS line as exhibited with fruitless Gas Attacks. Haven't any of you heard of Entropy? How has this Forum thread gone so wrong? I am in despair for what the future may hold ... YBT |
| hkwint May 19, 2009 7:51 PM EDT |
Quoting:Snark ->> Serious Discussion ->>> Useful Input ->>>> Solutions!! They haven't told you LXer doesn't support displaying that the correct way (right to left) because of localization problems, did they? Quoting:I will say I prefer a graphical login, on a first login after an install it tells me the graphics card stands a chance of working decently..if it bumps me to a shell, lookout.. In theory, I agree. However, this is harsh practice all too often: I boot Ubuntu, Fedora or whatever doesn't work for me. It starts graphical login, but graphics don't work; some garbled screen is shown and I can't login. I try to use Ctrl+Alt+Backspace or Ctrl+Fx to find error messages, but that doesn't as X is immediately respawn. Or worse, since Xorg really børked* my system; and even my monitor goes back and forth between 'on' and standby and not any key combination can change that, except holding down the power button. Open/Net/FreeBSD, nor even Windows _ever_ did such a thing! Only 'Linux' (May I add another point for 'no' to general Linux marketing please?) Ah, then it's nice to just starting with a console - because the thing always works - and then trying to start X. So a graphical login would be a good idea given that graphics work. However, if graphics don't work, than a graphical login is both a hindrance to Linux adoption (people cannot start using Linux at all; if they received CLI that would be better than the monitor powering of I guess) and debugging. *Please note, I don't have a clue about localization, and the ø is done using the only cross-platform way of localization which I'd like to patent as of right now, which is going to WP, typing 'Danish', choosing for Danish language, finding such an ø and using Ctrl+C / Ctrl + V. This method has also worked for € the last year before I finally got my multi-key working (how stupid can a Gentoo user be?). I bet it might even be supported on Mac even if I never used one. |
| techiem2 May 19, 2009 9:50 PM EDT |
Yeah, I don't have to deal with localization since it's my personal boxes. Of course mom's box logs into a dm. |
| Sander_Marechal May 20, 2009 2:44 AM EDT |
@Hans: I think you've been bitten by Ubuntu's "Bulletproof X" which IMHO is one of the worst features to ever make it into Ubuntu. When X borks or fails you should get an ncurses window with the error output and drop back to the commandline so you can fix it. Only on Ubuntu does X tries to restart automatically after a failure. |
| hkwint May 21, 2009 2:36 PM EDT |
Probably you are correct Sander, IIRC that was Ubuntu. But it was not as bad as Fedora because I worked my way around it. However, I'm going to do a second attempt as I found out my nVidia 6600 card is supposed and tested to work with Fedora 11. Probably it has to do with the nouveau driver being default for Fedora 11 I guess. |
| devnet May 23, 2009 12:29 AM EDT |
@caitlyn, GDM was actually a rewrite of KDM until they recently rewrote it. You could go inside the code and see line for line where KDM was copied across...there were a few gnomifications but mostly KDM. KDM has been notoriously superior to GDM for quite some time. The rewrite of GDM really was overdue but they shot themselves in the foot again here by not giving end users the ability to theme it out of the gate. That's why I am and always will be a happy KDE and XFCE user. |
| caitlyn May 23, 2009 12:45 AM EDT |
@devnet: For a very long time KDM did NOT support language/locale switching in the login menu and GDM did. For some people, particularly outside the U.S. where monolingualism is not the norm, that was an essential and missing feature. To me that made KDM Intrinsically inferior. That has just *finally* been fixed after several years listed as a bug, When it takes years to fix basic functionality you simply cannot convince me that a project is in any way superior. If GDM is derivative of KDM it is one of many examples where the child project far surpassed the parent. |
| krisum May 25, 2009 1:34 AM EDT |
@devnet There is a gdm daemon that controls the logins, and there is a gdm greeter front-end which has themes etc. The daemon took code from kdm, as you say, but the locale setting is a feature of front-end which did not take code from kdm as far as I know. |
| jacog May 25, 2009 4:42 AM EDT |
Oh, and besides Ctrl+Alt+Backspace you can't change screen resolution anymore using Ctrl+Alt+Keypad +/- either. It's a rather freakin odd thing to omit. |
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