On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 02:16:12PM -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote: > (This is a contentious issue in the X userbase - some have hailed us for > finally stopping the random death of the server to users who mistype > because they use applications which bind to Ctrl-Backspace, others decry > us for removing the escape hatch they rely on when things go too badly > wrong. http://who-t.blogspot.com/2009/04/zapping-server.html is a > fairly good summary.) > > Of course, those of us who only use Sun Unix layout keyboards may find > the arguments less compelling than those using standard PC layouts where > Ctrl and Alt are close enough to accidentally hit both at once, but our > user base has a lot more of those keyboards than Unix layout keyboards.
I use PC keyboards. I never have had this problem _except_ in connection with my use of the sticky keys A11Y feature. Suppose I've hit shift twice to keep the keyboard shifted, then I intend to type a control character, but change my mind and decide to hit backspace; oops. But that's very rare. > (Should we decide we want to change the default to enable C-A-B, it should > be a simple matter of adding the terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp option to the > XKB options in the HAL .fdi file we use to configure keyboards now.) IMO it's really unfortunate that we need C-A-B at all, but, for as long as we do need it (e.g., until the VT project delivers), then I think it should be enabled by default, but that's a weak "should". It's not a big deal if it goes away, provided there's a suitable note in the release notes about it. Nico --
