Does Your PC Really Need a SysRq Button Anymore?

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered what the SysRq key on your keyboard does? Lenovo has decided it's so rarely used that it has started removing the key from some new Thinkpad Edge laptops. We already know that Lenovo are something of the fastidious scientists when it comes to keyboard design. Last time they fiddled with the age-old key layout, it was after painstaking research to count exactly how many times users press the Delete and Escape keys. Now it seems another relic of computer keyboards is starting to disappear."

Get rid of unnecessary one and zero keys

[shoppa]

When I learned to type we didn't have these extra "one" and "zero" keys. We used lower case "ell" and upper case "Oh" and we were happy, dang it!

Has to be said a bit differently this time ...

[tomhudson]

"You can have my SysRq key when you pry it from my cold dead ThinkPad!"

Re:Debug key

[Infiniti2000]

Lenovo doesn't need to do any debugging so the key is superfluous to them.

Re:I've used it

[mm_202]

Yep... just confirmed that it also works even if Linux isnt frozen...

Say what?

[djupedal]

"Ever wondered what the SysRq key on your keyboard does?"

No - since I own a Mac....you insensitive bork........

Re:Print Screen

[jollyreaper]

That is the Print Screen key. Don't ever remove that key from the keyboard! I don't care that the word "SysRq" is written below "Print Screen" on that key. Feel free to remove that "SysRq" word from there, but do NOT remove the handy print screen key! Thanks.

But if we drop the sysrq key we'll finally have room for the any key.

Re:I've used it

[discord5]

If linux freezes, then Alt-SysRq-S+U+B will do an emergency sync of the disks, unmount them and reboot the system.

Bah! That almost looks like an emacs keycombo. M-x-Ctrl-v-p-o-k-l-m-z-w and then press your spacebar with your nose, and it'll do the same thing by the way. It's really handy to have such a shortcut, but the odds of your cat walking over the keyboard and hitting that particular combo are pretty high.

It's there to tell the OS

[hey!]

that the user is pressing the SysRq key.

In fact, to *urgently* tell the OS that the SysRq. It's not supposed to be buffered or anything, it supposed to grab the OS by the collar and scream "THE USER JUST PRESSED THE DAMMNED SYSRQ KEY!!!!" at it.

But what is that supposed to mean?

It doesn't mean anything.

That's the whole point.

When they were designing the keyboard, they thought of all the things that you might want a keyboard to say ("STOP SCROLLING", "Show me that last page", "Get me the hell out of this input mode"). And after they'd mandated keys for everything anybody could think of, they had a stroke of genius. They mandated a key that did nothing anybody wanted to do.

Why is that a stroke of genius?

It is something rare in engineering, which thrives on bravado and feverishly inflated self-confidence. It is an admission of the limitation of human foresight, an acknowledgement that there are more things under Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies; a semiotic *memento mori*.

This key is mandated to mean nothing, therefore it can mean anything, or indeed, everything.

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

An obvious troll

Too many keys!!!

[Primitive Pete]

Frankly, there are a lot of keys we could get rid of, because they just take up real estate and don't help with the way I use the keyboard. I rarely have rekwirements to use the Q key, and I'm kwite sure that others could get by without it, too. These key-friendly users just need to akwire new work habits. What's hard about that?

Re:Print Screen

[SharpFang]

But how will a psychiatrist diagnose their patient then?
They just need to ask the user to press any key...

space bar - penile size complex.
ctrl - control freak
esc - escapism
alt - schizophrenia
shift - split personality
enter - vaginal fixation
F1 - overgrown ambition.
num enter - anal fixation
num zero - low self esteem
menu key - bulimic
tab - drunkard
backslash - paranoia
caps lock - Tourette's
delete - destructive
arrow up - mania
arrow down - depression
windows key - suicidal tendencies
reset - hopeless idiot.

Re:PrintScreen

[Nadaka]

Print screen is tool for terrorists and pirates! You could copy all 15 hours of the extended edition of lord of the rings by using print screen on each frame of film and saving it all to uncompressed bitmaps.[/humor]

Re:How about the even more useless keys?

[omgarthas]

I don't know why, but the windows computer at my job does the Copy with CONTROL + INSERT and the Paste with SHIFT + INSERT, weird, I know... It's Windows XP, I could change it if I wanted, but I've just get used to it, tho at home I use the common ctrl-c, ctrl-v....

Re:Debug key

[grub]

I use the SysRq key on an almost daily basis whenever I screw up a kernel compile

Hey, how is Gentoo nowadays?

.

Re:Print Screen

[Linker3000]

You can use ALT-F4 instead - try it now.

Re:Debug key

[houstonbofh]

Oh yeah... THAT makes it portable.

Re:Get rid of unnecessary one and zero keys

[FromellaSlob]

Pah. One and zero are the only keys that *are* essential.

Re:It's there to tell the OS

[itsdapead]

In fact, to *urgently* tell the OS that the SysRq.

My first computer, an OSI Superboard 2 had a key for that: "Break". I think it was wired to the reset pin of the 6502.

That got its attention :-)

Re:Debug key

[Rogerborg]

Hang on, he'll get back to you in 36 hours with an optimal rejoinder.

Re:I've used it

[SQL Error]

Hold down both shift keys, both alt keys, and F1, pop the disk out of the drive and put it back in.

New Product

[Tea-Bone of Brooklyn]

I'm seeing a market for a USB SysRq key - just a single key with a rotatable USB connector on it.

Re:Debug key

[Andrewkov]

You'd be surprised, I pressed it twice just while typing this comment.

Re:But you don't only lose a key

[El_Isma]

My Asus Travelmate has an key and a $ key. I'm still wondering what to do with them. I really don't know what went through their minds when they decided "HEY! Let's put a $ key!", like shift-4 wasn't enough.

Re:Get rid of unnecessary one and zero keys

[edittard]

Notice that the number keys begin at '2'.

So does it go up to 11?

Re:Debug key

[TheRaven64]

If you are compiling kernels that often, then you are either a kernel developer or an idiot. If you are a kernel developer, then you can just make your kernel intercept some other key combination. If you are an idiot, then there's no reason for the rest of the world to cater to you.

Re:They're remapping something else

[daniorerio]

You're hired! - Steve Jobs

Re:Get rid of unnecessary one and zero keys

[dzfoo]

Haha! That's silly! Why would they confuse the O with a zero when they write morse code, do they spell out the "DØT"?

          -dZ.

Re:Get rid of unnecessary one and zero keys

[david_thornley]

And '!' was typed as period-backspace-apostrophe (or the reverse). I wonder if I have that thing any more. It was good at making regular marks on paper during a power failure, but it had this extremely bad habit of inserting the character I typed rather than the one I wanted.

Re:Debug key

[digitalhermit]

Haha, who's laughing now. I did it in six hours!!! And you mocked my -funroll-loops and -O16. Who's laughing now???

Re:They're remapping something else

[stepdown]

Reminds me of that "Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard" story from The Onion. http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary?utm_source=embedded_video [theonion.com]

Re:Caps Lock Key

[pclminion]

Jeez, how many serial numbers do you type per day that you need a special key on your keyboard just to make typing serial numbers easier? Is you job title "Serial Number Entry Technician?"

Re:I've used it

[Richy_T]

Careful. I accidently typed Alt - SysRq - R + E + I + S + E + R and my wife disappeared.

Re:Debug key

[bughunter]

You've never met a gentoo user have you? They compile kernels everywhere.

Sounds analogous to my geriatric, incontinent cat.

Re:I've used it

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the hint!
Woo hoo, a single life for me!!!