Comments on: Squib of the Day: Ctrl+Alt+Delete

By: Squibs roundup, number 1 - …for the adult in you

Squibs roundup, number 1 - …for the adult in you — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 19:42:31 +0000

[...] ctrl+alt+delete — no action yet; will probably put it in as a binding for the system monitor for the moment, since that’s very simple, and perhaps come back to it later [...]

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:44:10 +0000

@David – I didn’t realise that – XP Pro is the only Windows version I have access to. So, C-A-D doesn’t even behave consistently on Windows?

I’d question that XP home is what most users are familiar with – that depends on whether we’re dealing with home users or companies. I don’t know the answer to that, but obviously it makes some difference.

By: bwmaister

bwmaister — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:17:52 +0000

Ah, monospace:

^X
Process Control
+——————–+
| SWITCH TO MAIN CTRL|
+———++———+
|Processes||Resources|
+———++———+
+-NAME——CPU—MEM+
| blah 100%…..|
| etc…………….|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
+——————–+
|Kill Selected Proc |
+——————–+
|Selected Proc Info |
+——————–+
| Close |
+——————–+

By: bwmaister

bwmaister — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:12:41 +0000

Speaking from the experience of having migrated from windows and migrating windows users, the first thing that I have to do is make it easy to bring up the system monitor, because telling people “oh, you know, just open up a terminal and type xkill” really doesn’t do linux justice.

As to using “CAD”, I can’t see any reason not to use that key-combo, and can think of two to use it: it’s well known, (everybody seems to know it) and it’s not used by any programs or window managers that I know of.

In terms of what to actually do when you hit it, I personally would love it if it (instantly :) opened a lightweight process manager and system resource viewer (tabbed) with a big honking button at the top that takes you to the current gnome system manager, but which is really simple itself Eg:

===================^=X
| Process Control |
+——————–+
| SWITCH TO MAIN CTRL|
+———++———+
|Processes||Resources|
+———++———+
+-NAME——CPU—MEM+
| blah 100%…0%|
| etc…………….|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
|………………..|
+——————–+
|Kill Selected Proc |
+——————–+
|Selected Proc Info |
+——————–+
| Close |
+——————–+

Also, the comments have brought up a good point: the system monitor should have a (session management) tab that is basically the current “log out/shutdown/etc” dialogue. If it also included the stuff that’s currently in the “Preferences->Sessions” menu, so much the more awesome.

Thanks for these squibs of the day.

By: Fabian

Fabian — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:26:08 +0000

I think the goal should be to get out of a deadlocked situation.

E.g. it often happened to me that evolution grabbed the keyboard and than hang.
So Ctrl-Alt-Del should ungrab them and make my mouse and keyboard work again.

By: Dextro

Dextro — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:45:52 +0000

I ussually bind Escape to gnome-system-monitor instead since that’s the real shortcut for the task manager in windows and over the years I got used to it.

By: Thomas Thurman

Thomas Thurman — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:41:51 +0000

@Oliver Samyn:

The question is what should happen by default, though. The goal isn’t to mimic Windows as such, just to avoid reinventing the wheel across desktops.

By: Olivier Samyn

Olivier Samyn — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:24:41 +0000

Just bringing what Ubuntu does for bug 99335 is fine. If I want to link c-a-d to another program, I may just uses the shortcut properties/gconf editor to change it.

Is the goal to mimic windows ?

By: antistress

antistress — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:28:03 +0000

putting up the GNOME system monitor with a keystroke bound by default to Ctrl+Alt+Delete was the 1st thing i did when i came from Windows
It’s very usefull indeed

BTW concerning the comment #5 mockup, since GNOME system monitor is not only about killing applications, the 1st entry in the dialog box should be : “Open the system monitor”

At first sight i didn’t like that mockup and prefered direct access to GNOME system monitor but after some thought i think it’s a very very good idea. Please do it

By: Markus

Markus — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:14:29 +0000

I just want to note that there is a different keybinding on Windows to directly bring up the Taskmanager : CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.

Once you are accustomed to this its a very nice shortcut to have.
Actually I find myself very often trying to press this in Gnome too. :-)