Personally I press Ctrl
Caps lock because it doesn’t do anything like enter or other keys might do and if I see the light blink then I know that the computer/keyboard is not frozen.
Interestingly, I use the shift key for the same reason of “it does nothing”. Who knows if I left half a command in the terminal or something like that. I don’t have a caps lock led, but that’s a good idea!
I’ve never heard of a frozen keyboard. That is definitely not an issue to worry about every single time anyway.
Plus when it works you need a second press to turn it back off before entering the password. Way too much work.
I usually use the up key as that is one of the few buttons I know of that will open the password field (I’m assuming down also works, but I haven’t tried many others). I usually turn my monitor off (can’t just leave it on as it’s in my room and if a cat moves their ear too quickly that will wake up the screen and I can’t have that while I’m comfortable in bed) at night, so the first time I use it in a day I will turn it on, smack the up arrow and the login screen is gone before the screen turns on all the way. Which is a little sad I don’t get to see it much since I did pick out a theme and background for it, but can’t be helped.
Wireless keyboards go to sleep and can disconnect. Modern ones are sometimes smart/quick enough to send the first keypress but older ones less so. Also if the computer’s off spamming caps lock won’t turn on the light and let you know to hit the power button.
Esc like 3-5 times (to also prompt the login input) or mouse wiggle
Scroll Lock
The “any” key, of course.
This is what I came into the comments section for…
Usually space
Same here. Whenever I need to wake up my PC I send it on a suborbital spaceflight. The forces of launch and reentry move the mouse a lot and it wakes up once I recover it from the ocean.
I mash space bar! At work I mash Ctrl alt delete
I always turn off my computer when I’m done. I like to get a fresh boot
That’s more taxing on the hardware over time
Uuuh, I’m pretty sure 13s of CPU time is not that taxing on the hardware.
+1 for linux. Stupid windows requires a reboot these days to get a fresh boot, go figure.
My machine’s boot time is pretty fast because of Linux.
Wake from sleep will always be faster, regardless of the OS.
I was pointing out that a “fresh boot” on windows isn’t what people think it is any more.
was pointing out that a “fresh boot” on windows isn’t what people think it is any more.
You can just turn off fast startup if you care that much. Generally there isn’t a reason to do that though.
Cursor-right.
It’s least likely to mess up your command line, won’t trigger an action, and easy to find blind.
Escape is kinda hardcoded as a safe button in my headspace and spacebar is just fun to press.
Wait… You guys actually only push one button?
I slide my entire hand across the keyboard like I’m waving to the computer haha
Space, because I enjoy chaos.
I shake the mouse then start entering my login before the screen turns on, works 50% of the time.
Left Ctrl
I just smack the keyboard or press a bunch of keys at once.
Space. On my mechanical keyboard it makes a nice thunk. You really know you’ve pressed it.
ctrl is the only correct choice obviously. it’s the only key that does nothing by itself and it’s positioned at a corner so it’s hard to mistype
Whatever method gets the job done is fine but this is the most correct answer.
