Asking a user for the root password and executing root only commands...

[Gerhard Häring]

Bengt Richter wrote in comp.lang.python:
> Out of the box my NT handles that better than my OOTB Linux, which was default
> configured to shut down. I haven't played with that much. Is there a way to
> start up a login on Ctrl-Alt-Del (probably meaning take over the video and go
> into text mode)?

Probably not.

If you want to disable rebooting on the ctrl-alt-del sequence, "man
inittab" should help. There's also an entry in the /proc filesystem,
called /proc/sys/kernel/ctrl-alt-del, which controls wether
ctrl-alt-del is handled by the kernel or by init:

/usr/src/linux/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt

(or wherever you keep your Linux sources).

X11 is yet another beast, of course. On the KDE I use, it appears that
ctrl-alt-del is handled by the session manager.

-- Gerhard