The Stages of Linux Grief 13334

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, William Poaster wrote on Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:35:42 +0100

The keystrokes are as follows.

Ctrl-Alt-Del:

Linux text console only. Pbutted toetc-init; seeetc-inittab for disposition, 'ca:' entry. For my system this will initiate a '-sbin-shutdown -r now'; I suspect most systems have a variant of this entry. '-etc-reboot' might work if one wants something quicker but I'm not sure it's as safe without looking.

Alt-Fn:

Linux text console only. Switches to console number n. There are usually 6, though it depends onetc-inittab again. (One neat OT feature: syslog can output to a text console, if configured properly.)

Ctrl-Alt-Fn:

Linux console and X window. Switches to console number n. On most systems console 7 is occupied by a bitmap application -- namely, the X server. Framebuffer or SVGA can also take a console. (Note that SVGA is getting very long in the tooth. Can be disabled by Option "DontVTSwitch" inetc-X11-xorg.conf, which may be handy for kiosks. 'man xorg.conf' for details.) Caution: may not work for some video drivers, as the registers get confused.

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace:

X only. Forces the X server to immediately terminate. (Can be disabled by Option "DontZap".) If xdm is running, the X server will restart from xdm unless one's been too enthusiastic about it, in which case one might get a message from XKeepsCrashing and have to restart xdm.

Ctrl-Alt-Keypad+, Ctrl-Alt-Keypad-:

X only. This is a card-hardware zoom feature, changing the size of each pixel. One can pan around using the mouse. (Can be disabled by Option "DontZoom".)

There's a few others described in 'man xorg.conf', which default to off for some reason.

If one can find the right...oh, wait, that's not a verb, that's a null token. :-)

-- It's still legal to go .sigless.