__/ [ Bobbie ] on Friday 10 March 2006 16:42 \__
> While dancing and signing to Enya's Carribean Blue, Roy Schestowitz
> exclaimed:
>
>> Find out who made CTRL+ALT+Delete so popular. Watch the video:
>>
>> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3877405527381660901
>
>
> Man, did you see the blank stare Gates gave to David Bradley, when Bradley
> said that he may have created the 'Ctrl-Alt-Del' sequence, but Bill made
> it famous.
>
> Burn, baby Burn!
The argument remains valid to date. Ctrl+Alt+Delete remains that 'red
alert' sequence, which indicates something had gone wrong. Repeated se-
quences as such reboot the computer, which is adverse to intuition. No
easy way to do this in POSIX-type operating systems, which is a good sign.
It is utterly unnecessary
Nowadays, the infamous Ctrl+Alt+Delete is extended. It serves as a panel
for system monitoring, password changes, and so forth. Ctrl+Alt+Delete has
become such a fundamenental piece of knowledge that every computer user
simply /must/ be familiar with. Even the dumbest among the computer user-
scommunity have the skills needed to reboot or rid themselves from an of-
fending process/application. Is this how "ease of use" is perceived and
defined by Microsoft? I rest one case.
Take GNOME as a contrary example. If an application is detected to have
reached a halt, GNOME will prompt the user with a two-option pop-up, which
enables the application to be shut down or be left alone. This happens
very, very rarely.
Let us look a little deeper, shall we? Linux has far better functionality
for achieving the needed task and circumventing unexpected perils. Consid-
er the case where access from the outside (text-based terminal without
root privileges should suffice) enables the user the get rid off rotten
processes. Then, consider the expressiveness of operations such as:
reboot
kill
killall -HUP <app-name>
Could it be any simpler? Could a GUI ever make it easier to analyse what
goes on underneath and then intervene? Well, guess what... KDE has this
option. Not only does it enable one to kill processes from the GUI
(Ctrl+Esc, which I find to be more logical than "delete", as well as easi-
er to reach if you are handicapped or have a single hand), but it also al-
lows you to 'swat' them using Ctrl+Alt+Esc, then 'smacking' the unwanted
windows. On top (pun intended), you can also change virtual terminal and
move to tty1, for example, using wonderful text-based tools like 'top'
(gives more details than Windows does) to remove rogue processes.
So Windows, in that respect, is far behind GNU/Linux. Windows /depends/ on
the ability to force a reboot, but its facilities for achieving it are the
equivalent of a pool cue for field plowing.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Software patents destroy innovation
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
4:45pm up 2 days 9:22, 7 users, load average: 0.28, 0.62, 0.59
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