Kill X in Ubuntu with dontzap
October 14th, 2009 by Shawn Powers in
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Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter
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December 2009, #188
If last month's Infrastrucuture issue was too "big" for you then try on this month's Embedded issue. Find out how to use Player for programming mobile robots, build a humidity controller for your root cellar, find out how to reduce the boot time of your embedded system, and if you're new to embedded systems find out the basics that go into one. You can also read about the Beagle Board, the Mesh Potato and a spate of other interestingly named items. And along with our regular columns don't miss our new monthly column: Economy Size Geek.
They did because they now
On November 15th, 2009 Fernandoc (not verified) says:
They did because they now use upstart and that combo is deprecated???
Don't know that have a package
On October 24th, 2009 richerVE (not verified) says:
The disabled Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is a feature (problem) of X.org 1.5 and later, not a Ubuntu's idea. In other distros you have to set DontZap to false in Section Serverflags of xorg.conf. And then edit some HAL rules for the keyboard to enable key combination. Nice touch in ubuntu
They have probably disabled
On October 19th, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) says:
They have probably disabled that combination to protect novice users, who doesn't know what that combination does. Just imagine: you ask your friend for help. Your friend says that all you have to do is press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to solve your problem. You press it... and your X is gone. The project you've been working on for a couple of hours (that you didn't save) is also lost.
Anyway, there *is* a reason for that, but advanced users would like it back, since it's a really useful feature.
Thanks.
Ubuntu has really screwed up
On October 17th, 2009 JimL (not verified) says:
From the Ubuntu wiki -
"however this will change starting with 9.04 "Jaunty", as a number of users have complained about accidentally restarting their X-Server."
They don't know what a "number of users" is yet. Just wait until they get 100 times as many complaints about the "new" feature.
Jim.
A Possible Reason
On October 15th, 2009 Mark M (not verified) says:
I too noticed weeks ago that ctrl+alt+backspace was removed along with dontzap from the repository. I enjoyed having the capability when X Windows would hang due to an errant application. One possible explanation for removing this capability is to hide the functionality of the X Windows system to make Linux distributions seem more like a commercial operating system or possibly security. Frankly being able to kill the GUI and get a ASCII login prompt isn't very slick looking.
For those of us who have grown up with *nix, we understand the layering of X Windows and GNOME/KDE/etc. for our pretty GUI OS, but most users don't understand the heritage. Apple hid all of the complexities of UNIX from the user with OS X by building their own GUI on top of the Mach kernel. I think it is about time to dump the 70's technology of X Windows and build a new GUI/windowing system from the ground up for Linux.
One example why I'm sticking with CentOS
On October 16th, 2009 Sum Yung Gai (not verified) says:
This is why I'm sticking with CentOS. It "just works" and doesn't get in my way. It just does what I tell it to do without argument. I used to use Kubuntu Jaunty, but I finally gave up 'cause of KDE 4.x. It doesn't do what I want it to do, and therefore it's too much of a pain in the backside for me to want to use it. To a lesser degree, Fedora has the same problem.
You said we could use a new modern replacement for X11. That actually wouldn't be a bad idea. The problem is that all the existing features of X11 would also need to be supported. Sort of a "backwards compatibility" mode. Remember, X11 isn't just a graphics engine, it's also a network protocol. You've got things like LTSP and other thin client architectures that depend on X11. So, maybe what ought to happen is an "X11+", a new mode of operation w/ a new set of API's that any new programs could use, but keep all the existing API's and stuff for all the existing programs. And make it multithreaded. Sort of how Intel/AMD have done with backwards compatibility in x86 processors for the last 30 years.
Oh, it'd also need to be at least as configurable as X11. Sometimes what X11 thinks is the "right" choice isn't what my application needs. I've gotta be able to still tweak things manually when I need to.
--SYG
Disabled in karmic
On October 15th, 2009 mniess (not verified) says:
You can completely forget this article in 14 days. dontzap is not available anymore. Editing the xorg.conf by hand doesn't work either. The only thing you can do is use ALT-SysRq-K to kill X. Unfortunately the good old option to reset the screen resolution (CTRL-ALT-+) is gone forever. That was really useful when a program (usually games) switched to a different resolution but didn't switch back. dontzap used to re-enable that, too.
Dontzap is still available
On October 16th, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) says:
According to the ubuntu wiki it just became an XKB option.
I'm not sure about DontZoom though.
err
On October 20th, 2009 mniess (not verified) says:
and what about ctrl-alt-+?
To clarify my above comment,
On October 21st, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) says:
ctrl-alt-+ = DontZoom, I couldn't find any information about its status.
That totally sucks
On October 15th, 2009 Shawn Powers says:
Grrrrrrrrr.....
__________________________Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter
Ubuntu need to reconsider their decision
On October 14th, 2009 cdnmbman (not verified) says:
I have no idea why they disabled ctrl+alt+backspace, I've never done it accidentally and not sure who would. I've been using the alt-printscreen+k to kill X when needed (hardly ever have to).
I suspect new users would just reboot, figuring their is no other option.
I agree. The only time I
On October 15th, 2009 metalx2000 says:
I agree. The only time I every accidentally hit ctrl+alt+backspace was when I forgot I was in Virtual-Box and hit ctrl+alt+backspace to restart that desktop and I ended up restarting my real X.
But, I use ctrl+alt+backspace to restart X quite often for different reasons.
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ctrl+alt+backspace
On October 15th, 2009 goblin says:
I have no idea why they disabled ctrl+alt+backspace
My PC had a factory-default setting in BIOS, that enabled me to shut down my system instantly with a hotkey combination: ctrl+alt+backspace...
Wow... I can't believe
On October 14th, 2009 mattcen says:
Wow... I can't believe somebody actually wrote a program to do that! Kinda goes to show that there must be *plenty* of people who get annoyed by this new "feature"!
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