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Monday, February 23, 2009

I keep killing my X server...

I use GNU Emacs to edit most everything. Python, text files, C code, shell scripts... I even run all of my shell windows as 'ansi-term' buffers. Who needs a mouse?

That said, I have a terrible habit of smacking CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE while attempting to hit CTRL+BACKSPACE. Yeah, I know. One kills the previous word and one kills the X server...

I've never really bothered to plug that up. This morning, I did it again. I did some digging:

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "yes"
EndSection

There. Now I can hit the wrong combination all day long and I won't bounce my X session. What a helpful little config option.

3 comments:

telenieko said...

Ahh DontZap ... At least in Debian's experimental it's now the Default !

http://lists.debian.org/debian-x/2009/01/msg00463.html

Brandon Rhodes said...

Keeping your Meta and Alt keys separate can also help avoid this sort of thing. :-) And thanks for the warning, telenieko — I'll have to make sure the option remains on for me, else there can be few options if X decides to start consuming too much swap space and I need to regain control of the system.

Anonymous said...

I guess now we can tell you about ctrl-alt-backSLASH. It's useless in python mode but very nice in html/css/C/etc.