After getting a comment from the creator of kanata (an awesome piece of software by the way) that he found my story amusing, I figured that I’d also post it here, partly as fun, partly as a cautionary tale. Also, I’d appreciate any tips as to what to check for in my system, it’s a weird feeling to know that some stuff might have been messed up under the hood.
Just reading, my first instinct was, “Yank the fucking cable, oh lawd!!!”
I hope I would be that reactionary in the situation, but as you said, you were confused and panicked and the thought didn’t occur until after. I guess I won’t know
unlessuntil it happens to me one day.Yes, this keyboard idea was quite a rollercoaster, because at first I blamed myself for not pulling it, but then I realized, that it wouldn’t have helped even if I did, as Kanata keeps running just fine with the bound input device removed. 🙃
(Edit: Oh, sorry, you meant the power cable! 🤦♂️)
I think they meant pull the power cable out 😬
Oh, sorry, I must’ve been replying to a keyboard related comment earlier and got the context mixed up in my head! 🤦♂️
He did say his keystrokes were playback in a few seconds. No way you realize what is happening and yank the cable this fast. This is the type of situation where people sit and watch the chaos unfold
After the first few times of me spilling coke, coffee, water and what not on my laptops and open case PCs I have it ingrained in me. Anything, ANYTHING goes wrong - plug that thing off ASAP. It’s a learned reflex at this point.
Maybe shouldn’t be doing lines of coke next to your laptop too
Lmao
OP is literally the dude running the strange setup in the age olld, “this should be a solution that anyone can use, no one can be running THAT strange of a setup”.
Why would you use two numpads as a keyboard. WHY
Because ortholinear split keyboards aren’t that easy to come by (I got tired of confusing my fingers when reaching for letters between them, now there is no “between”, just straight columns. Also, I can hold my hands at shoulder width!), on the other hand this was an option I had all the necessary hardware for, and with some software configuration it is actually really usable!
(The question could potentially also be “Why aren’t more people using two numpads as a keyboard?”, but I guess that the answer would be somewhere between they don’t care about and they don’t know about the advantages it would provide. 🙃)
I once left my phone non locked in my pocket once and it started typing a ton of gibberish in a serious group chat. So yep, could’ve been worse for you
Fucking Gskill keyboard has the same issue. Maco recording buttons that are up near escape so I’d hit record without knowing it, then sometime later I’d replay it all. After the second time I just ripped the whole button off the keyboard.
Fuck that shit.
Damn. In the old days, I would have yanked the power cable out, but I probably wouldn’t remember powering off the laptop either. Kudos for posting about it though.
Does Ctrl+Alt+Backspace not kill X any more (assuming you’re using X)?
Does Ctrl+Alt+Delete reboot the system from a graphical desktop? Or is that only from the virtual consoles?
I wonder if locking the session would have stopped it as well. I doubt the Alt+SysRq combos would have been useful since other random input was happening at the same time (unless the next keystroke happened to be an I, U, or B).
1.) I’m using wayland (river as a compositor at this point), and have not set up a key combo for
riverctl exitin fear of an accidental trigger, but it might actually be a good idea.
2.) As far as I know, that only applies to the VTTYs.
3.) Setting up a screen locker program does seem like a good option for preventing unwanted input (which can occur for other reasons as well, such as my one year old son 😀) without potential loss of work / data! Isswaylockthe go to solution for this nowadays?They moved Ctrl-Alt-Backspace behind a config iirc - too easy to hit by accident.
This made me chuckle, thanks!
