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Does Linux have a CTRL+ALT+DEL equivalent?

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Not programming related : belongs on superuser.com – Philippe Carriere Sep 28 '10 at 13:56
CTRL+ALT+DEL can do many things on Windows? Are you looking for a process manager? – BloodPhilia Sep 28 '10 at 14:00
This varies a great deal by what kind of system you are using. What distribution/desktop environment/window manager do you use? – Daenyth Sep 28 '10 at 14:19
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Sep 28 '10 at 13:57

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7 Answers

up vote 10 down vote

X can be killed using Ctrl+Aal+BackSpace, and if you hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or F2 through 6), you'll be dropped to a virtual console where you can type commands to kill the bad app. To switch back to the GUI, hit Ctrl+Alt+F7.

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+1 Valid on some distros. – karlphillip Sep 28 '10 at 13:55
Might need to hit Alt+SysRq+R before you can use Ctrl+Alt+F1, if the keyboard is stuck in some strange mode. – Eroen Mar 30 at 15:44
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up vote 4 down vote

Under GNU/Linux [at least those based on the SystemV init style], the behavior of ctrl+alt+del relies on the configuration file /etc/inittab where you should be able to read a line like:

<id>::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

(example from an ArchLinux distribution) which means that the system will be shutdown when it receives the key combination. But you may want to do something else, like*:

<id>::ctrlaltdel:/usb/bin/sudo make me a sandwich

(which is much more useful :)

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make: *** No rule to make target `me'. Stop. – Eroen Mar 30 at 15:47
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up vote 2 down vote

In the Linux console, by default in most distributions, Ctrl+Alt+Del behaves as in the MS-DOS - it restarts the system.

In the GUI, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace will kill the current X server and start a new one, thus behaving like the SAK sequence in Windows (Ctrl+Alt+Del).

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up vote 1 down vote

Yes, however the action it takes depends on desktop manager configurations. In KDE it shows a dialog for which you can choose if restart or halt the system.

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up vote 1 down vote

In gnome, there's a feature called "Keyboard Shortcuts" that lets you customize keyboard shortcuts.

The process manager for Gnome is called gnome-system-monitor, so if you go to: - System; - Preferences; - Keyboard Shortcuts and add gnome-system-monitor as CTRL+ALT+DEL it should work for you :)

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up vote 1 down vote

REISUB would be the closest equivalent. Magic SysRq keys are the only way of emulating traditional Windows / DOS hard-resets in Linux / UNIX.

For a Program Manager-like interface, use top and hit 'k' for 'k'ill.

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is disabled by default in X Servers > 1.6 (although some distros re-enable it in the config files that they ship). Although it doesn't do what Windows Ctrl+Alt+Del does in general killing X and fixing misbehaving programs is preferred over restarting the machine.

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+1 for magic SysRq-keys. They have been handy many times in the past. – Daniel Andersson Mar 30 at 17:50
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up vote 0 down vote

Yes, they are the same keys on Ubuntu but they may very according to your distro.

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