From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2-2 i686; en-US; m18) Gecko/20010131 Netscape6/6.01 Description of problem: Xconfigurator generates config files which do not include the DontZap setting. The result is that, every time I run Xconfigurator (mostly, every time I upgrade RedHat), I have to manually edit the file. Usually, I forget, until the first time I accidentally press Control-Alt-Backspace (usually in Emacs) and lose my work. I appreciate that Control-Alt-Backspace is a safety net for when X has gone mad; but I believe it probably does more harm than good. It's not actually necessary (if I need to kill the X server, I can press Control-Alt-F2 to get a virtual console); and it bites me 3-4 times a year. A novice user would be even worse off, because they wouldn't know how to set DontZap (particularly now that Xconfigurator generates a config file without comments and "uncomment this to do such-and-so" instructions). How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Run Xconfigurator (or install/upgrade RHL). 2. Start X. 3. Press Control-Alt-Backspace. Actual Results: X exits gracelessly. Expected Results: X should survive. There should not be hidden keystrokes in my UI that will cause me to lose my work. Additional info: I'm marking the severity as High because I do lose data. I marked this as 7.1 and i386, but I've been putting up with it since 5.2 at least, and I have no reason to expect it's any different on non-i386 platforms.
DontDoThat is the solution. I'm not changing the default because it is easy to configure it however you like. One could just as easily argue that if it were changed to DontZap, that if XFree86 dies in any way that they can't use the three finger salute to kill the X server and thus had to hit reset and lose data. There is no one solution that will work for everyone. That is why it is a configuration option.
As an alternative, could you maybe add a checkbox in Xconfigurator? Me, I don't find it that easy to change; you have to restart your X server to get it to pick up the change, and the config file is pretty obscure (that's why Xconfigurator exists, after all). A novice would never find it. Better still would be a change to the X server which would have it check the config file when C-A-BS is pressed, so that it could be changed without restarting the server (you could even have a setting in the GNOME control panel).