Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

[Mad Penguin]

This got removed by default a little while back and re-enabling it isn't that obvious.

Here's what you need to do;

System -> Preferences -> Keyboard -> Layouts -> Key sequence to kill the X server -> "tick"

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Still available by default in Mint

[daveh]

Cheers for that, was wondering what happened to it.

One thing that drives me up the wall with the Gnome devs is their occasional habit of taking a perfectly reasonably function and removing it based on some messed up idea that most of their users are clumsy idiots (right click "Open-in-Terminal" is a good example and yes I know it can be reinstalled - that's not the point).

[Mad Penguin]

Mmm,

I think what happens is that distro's ask for the option, and Gnome add it in (as an option) then some distro's use it as their default. Pretty much everything is tweaked via gconf-editor. Take Ubuntu 10.04's new style of putting the windows options (close etc) on the left rather than the right.

I can just picture the Ubuntu dev, "Ohoo, we can move the closer, cool, let's try it".

Not all change is good, especially when there's no reason for it ... 

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Oddly enough I think Alt+SysRq+K makes more sense, although a little harder to remember at first, I suppose.
After all it is a System Request to Kill X (and other processes).

Why can I feel an argument about what constitutes a "system request", coming on

[Mad Penguin]

Mmm, every time a developer switches a 20 year standard to something that 'makes more sense', somewhere out in the ether, a penguin dies ...

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Aww...
you've got me all depressed now... I take it back, "bring back Ctrl+Alt+BkSp"... "SAVE THE PENGUINS"

[Mad Penguin]

Mmm, too late! With the release of Ubuntu 10.04, penguins are now extinct! 

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

I don't know about "extinct", but it certainly seems to have made them "angry"... Mad?
they'd better watch out... I remember reading something about angry penguins charging at 100mph...