Bug#581758: keyboard-configuration: way to enable xserver zapping not documented
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 06:34:28PM +0200, Julien Cristau wrote:
> On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 17:30:46 +0200, Petr Baudis wrote:
>
> > There is no documentation on how to enable xserver zapping functionality
> > in keyboard-setup, a rather important feature which changed default
> > behavior since last stable release. The only way to normally find out
> > is to run dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration _and_ let
> > keyboard-configuration completely rewrite all the setting (it cannot
> > reproduce more complex multi-layout settings easily, it seems).
> >
> > Either keyboard-configuration setup should handle enabling the zapping
> > without touching the rest of the layout setup, or it needs to be clearly
> > documented that users can enable it themselves by appending
> > "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp" to XKBOPTIONS.
> >
> There's some info about that change in
> /usr/share/doc/xkb-data/NEWS.Debian.gz. I think it's more appropriate
> to have it there rather than in keyboard-configuration, since that's
> where the change was made, and that's also the package that's getting
> upgraded from lenny as opposed to a new package. Suggestions for
> improvement of that text are welcome.
I was looking really hard for this information, but xkb-data is one
package that never occured to me to look at - I saw it in the list of
xkb-related packages, but it seemed obvious to me that it would just
contain definitions of particular layouts and not concern itself with
talking about general xkb options.
I think the wording is fine, it is just not obvious to look for that
information in xkb-data. Traditionally, the shortcut to zap the X
server has been regarded as a core X server functionality, so
traditional users are also not that likely to look at xkb-data docs.
What about adding this in /etc/default/keyboard ?
# The following variables describe your keyboard and can have the same
# values as the XkbModel, XkbLayout, XkbVariant and XkbOptions options
-# in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
+# in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Notably, XkbOptions now needs to explicitly
+# set "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp" to enable the traditional X server
+# zapping behavior.
Another option would be to at least make sure that the Squeeze release
notes outline this clearly. I'm not sure what the process for this would
be as there seem to be no release notes available yet.
--
Petr "Pasky" Baudis
When I feel like exercising, I just lie down until the feeling
goes away. -- xed_over
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