Thanks for the Virus.

[Nils Kassube]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> That's the point that I am making: To Ctrl-Alt-F1 into a terminal,
> diagnose what is hanging X, and the to fix it may be above the skill
> level of the user. It is above my skill level, in any case. C-A-B
> works fine in those situations.

OK, you may not find out what caused the X problem, but you could 
restart the X server. Please don't tell me that is beyond _your_ skill 
level - I wouldn't believe you. Furthermore, if you know which 
application caused the problem you could kill that application, then X 
might be usable again and you might save some data of other apps. You 
wouldn't have that chance if you used C-A-B.

> In other words, this change is making the system harder to use for
> noobs. Let me ask this: a noob is using the computer and the Xserver
> hangs. What can he do now?

Would you expect a newbie to know about C-A-B? Unless there is a helping 
hand available on the telephone he might be lost anyway and use the big 
red button. I would recommend Ctrl-Alt-F1 + Ctrl-Alt-Del so the system 
can shut down in a cleaner way. Of course an even better way is 
Ctrl-Alt-F1, login and restart the display manager but that really 
might be beyond the capabilities of a newbie if the instructions come 
over the telephone.


Nils