[plug] Keystrokes for screen saver in Gnome?

[Bernard Blackham]

On Fri, Dec 24, 2004 at 02:11:11PM +0800, Jeffrey Lim wrote:
> I was just wondering, how about that 'ctrlaltdel' line in inittab? (I
> assume that most, if not all, distros should have it). Which process
> ultimately catches it first if i do a ctrl-alt-del in X?

X turns the keyboard into RAW mode, so it receives all keypresses
without the kernel trying to interpret them (nearly).  Hence, X will
also receive Ctrl-Alt-Delete (if it is active on the current VT).
This is a problem if X crashes, so if you have Sysrq keys compiled
in, then Alt+Sysrq+R will take the keyboard out of raw mode so you
can do things like a useful C-A-D.

On the console, the kernel processes C-A-D and will either signal
init by sending it a SIGINT, or reboot the machine instantly.  By
default, C-A-D reboots the machine. When init gets started
(generally as the first process after the kernel boots), it tells
the kernel to direct C-A-D it to instead of just rebooting.

And sysrq's are another quirk in themselves - generally both X and
the kernel receive them... :)

Bernard.

-- 
 Bernard Blackham <bernard at blackham dot com dot au>