Re: Ctrl-alt-del to restart window manager with xfce in wheezy? [CONCLUSION]
On Sat 15 Jun 2013 at 00:30:52 -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
> Well, I finally got a couple of free hours this afternoon. Here's
> what I did.
>
> The system I was having trouble with was one of my "testing"
> systems, so there wasn't much of importance on it. So I decided to
> re-install Wheezy from scratch and see how a really "fresh out of
> the box" system behaved. (For the record, the original system had
> some left-over cruft from previous experiments, and I don't know
> exactly how that might have affected the things I was seeing.)
>
> (1) I installed Wheezy from scratch with desktop=xfce from the
> netinst CD.
>
> (2) I looked at /etc/default/keyboard and noted no "XKBOPTIONS" line.
>
> (3) I tried "ctrl-alt-del" and "ctrl-alt-backspace". The second did
> nothing. The first started a screensaver.
Sounds right.
> (4) I ran "dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration" and changed the
> "Use Control+Alt+Backspace to terminate the X server?" option from
> "no" to "yes".
>
> (6) I looked at /etc/default/keyboard again and noted there now was
> a line with XKBOPTIONS="terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp".
This is expected after doing "dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration".
> (5) I tried "ctrl-alt-del" and "ctrl-alt-backspace" again (without
> logging out or rebooting). As expected, no change from (3),
This will not work. Please see below.
> (6) I logged out, logged back in. I tried the experiment again. No
> change from (3).
This will not work. Please see below.
> (7) I rebooted and logged back in. I tried the experiment again.
> This time "ctrl-alt-backspace" restarted the X server. And
> "ctrl-alt-del" still started the screensaver.
At last! Udev does not know about what you have done, so one way of
beating it into submission is by rebooting. A gentler approach is
udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=input --action=change
> So *somewhere* in the cruft on the old system was *something* that
> interfered with restarting the X server. But I don't have the
> energy to track it down. It will just have to remain one of life's
> little mysteries.
>
> Sorry for all the fuss...
It's not a fuss but an interesting situation. Nowadays, most users would
not know of ctrl-alt-backspace as a way of exiting X. The DEs have seen
to that. But, for the present, it can still be used if you know how to
activate it, as you have discovered.
You asked about ctrl-alt-del (or some other key combination) to close X.
Please look at /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/terminate:
partial default modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "ctrl_alt_bksp" {
key <BKSP> {
type="CTRL+ALT",
symbols[Group1] = [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol,
Terminate_Server ]
};
};
Changing 'key' to 'DELE' might be a thought. Except . . .
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