Xorg – How to Enable Killing with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace

keyboard shortcutssettingsxorg

I don't remember why they did this, but at one point X.org decided that disabling CtrlAltBackspace to kill it was a good idea. I know there's a way to re-enable it but I don't remember how. Can someone refresh my memory?

Best Answer

Modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf or a .conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ with the following. (note: it is ok if this is all you have in your xorg.conf as xorg will still auto-detect the rest (note: that is if auto-detect works for you without it))

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "DontZap" "false"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier      "Keyboard Defaults"
    MatchIsKeyboard "yes"
    Option          "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
EndSection

Related Solutions

LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 – What Does It Actually Do?

Indirect rendering means that the GLX protocol will be used to transmit OpenGL commands and the X.org will do the real drawing.

Direct rendering means that application can access hardware directly without communication with X.org first via mesa.

The direct rendering is faster as it does not require change of context into X.org process.

Clarification: In both cases the rendering is done by GPU (or technically - may be done by GPU). However in indirect rendering the process looks like:

Program calls a command(s)
Command(s) is/are sent to X.org by GLX protocol
X.org calls hardware (i.e. GPU) to draw

In direct rendering

Program calls a command(s)
Command(s) is/are sent to GPU

Please note that because OpenGL was designed in such way that may operate over network the indirect rendering is faster then would be naive implementation of architecture i.e. allows to send a buch of commands in one go. However there is some overhead in terms of CPU time spent for context switches and handling protocol.

Enable killing X.org with a custom key combination

XkbOptions refers to a rule defined in the XKB rules file, normally /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base, which will look like:

terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp =   +terminate(ctrl_alt_bksp)

That in turn picks up the definition from the terminate symbols file, normally /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/terminate. I'm not sure if you can just add more modifiers to the type="CTRL+ALT" line there or if there's limits on the type value.

Documentation on XKB customization can be found at http://www.x.org/wiki/XKB and may be able to help fill in some of the gaps in this answer.

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Related Solutions

LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 – What Does It Actually Do?

Enable killing X.org with a custom key combination

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