How to enable Ctrl+Alt+Backspace in Ubuntu 11.10
(Oneiric Ocelot) Linux
My sister, experience some programs running with
wine
(Windows Emulator) to crash on her Ubuntu 11.10.
As she is quite new with Linux, she has no idea about the existence
of
CTRL ALT BACKSPACE key combination to restart a hanged
GNOME, KDE by directly killing the Xorg server.
I felt obliged to explain her it is better to use
CTRL ALT
BACKSPACE X kill switch instead of restarting the whole Linux
kernel (which basiclly is working) and that it is just the display
keeping blacnk.
Pressing the would kill Xorg and therefore all applicatins
previously running on top of it will die. In Ubuntu Xorg is
configured to run via gdm, so once killed it will automatically
reload the
GDM (Gnome Display Manager).
I was about to explain her that its better she use
CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE instead of restarting the whole system
but suddenly I realized this is not working.
In UBUNTU 11.10 and I guess in all UBUNTU's after 9.04
CTRL ALT
BACKSPACE is substituted with the key switch combination
ALT
PRINTSCREEN K, I've explained her about that.
This change is actually a change implied by most Linux
distributions nowdas and is some kind of change in Xorg newer
versions...
To enable back the
CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE , I've issued
cmd:
stanimira@ubuntu~:$ echo' setxkbmap -option
terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp' >> ~/.xinitrc
An alternative way to set
setxkbmap -option
terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp to run on Ubuntu user login is by
setting it as a startup application using;
stanimira@ubuntu:~$
gnome-session-properties
Press the
Add button and type in the box to appear;
Name: setxkbmap
Command: setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp
Comment: setxkbmap
Reverting the Xserver kill switch back to the classical
Ctrl+Alt+Backspace should also be running fine on older
Ubuntu Linuces - 11.04, 10.10, 10.04 etc.