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In Ubuntu 11.04, Ctrl-Alt-Del gives me a menu with shutdown, hibernate, suspend and restart, but no logout. Is there a key combination to logout of Ubuntu? Is there a way to provide one?

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5 Answers

up vote 15 down vote accepted

Creating custom keyboard shortcuts:

For 11.04:

To add a new shortcut open System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts and press Add:

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In the opening window type in your custom command name and the command you want to run (e.g. gnome-session-save --logout to logout immediately).

Press on the Shortcut line of your new shortcut and press the key combination you want to use (here Alt + Backspace). If it already exists you will get a warning.

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Choose Add to add a new shortcut, give the commands mentioned and choose your key combination.

You may neeed to reboot your system for a shortcut to take effect

For 11.10 and later:

To add a new shortcut open System Settings -> Keyboard and choose the Shortcuts tab:

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Press the '+' sign on the bottom left to enter the name of your custom shortcut and the command you want to run (e.g. gnome-session-quit --logout --no-prompt). After having applied this you are able to select the line of your new shortcut. Then press the desired key combination.

Note: The default keyboard shortcut to logout with a 60s timeout is Ctrl + Alt + Del in 11.10.

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Thanks for the effort of putting this answer together! I'd be interested to know if "System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts tab"... described here has the same effect as "Gnome Control Center -> Keyboard" described by @enzotib (for 11.10) –  drevicko Oct 20 '11 at 2:54
@drevicko The menu entry System Settings calls the Gnome Control Center, so yes, its the same. –  Takkat Oct 20 '11 at 6:11
Excellent It the same trick for 12.04. –  papachan May 6 '12 at 13:07
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In Ubuntu 11.10 you could write a script containing


make it executable with chmod +x script-name, then set a global shortcut to execute this script in Gnome Control Center -> Keyboard.

In previous Ubuntu versions there was gnome-session-save --logout.

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In 11.10 the default action on Ctrl+Alt+Del is to logout. –  Takkat Oct 19 '11 at 7:09
@Takkat: you're right, I assumed the OP do not want it to ask for confirmation. –  enzotib Oct 19 '11 at 7:26
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I think You can just make custom shortcut for "gnome-session-quit --logout --no-prompt" without any bash scripting.

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If you are using Unity (the default environment in Ubuntu 11.04 and later) then you can press the Super key (aka the Windows key) to bring up the dash, type in "log" and the first option is "Log Out" so just press Enter. This will bring up a dialog box to confirm whether you want to log out, with the "Log Out" button already selected, so press Enter again. And you're logged out.

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"Log Out" does not appear in my dash.. –  drevicko Oct 20 '11 at 2:52
@drevicko: I've only actually tested this on 11.10, so it is possible it doesn't works with 11.04. –  Hamish Downer Oct 20 '11 at 16:55
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In Ubuntu 1204 there are two out-of-the-box solutions:

  1. "Run a command" technique:

    Alt-F2 | type gnome-session-quit

  2. "Indicator menu" technique:

    Alt-F10 | arrow right or left to gear icon | arrow down to Log Out...

In each case, confirm logout by hitting Enter. A bug in Ubuntu for #1 is that if you login and do nothing and hit Alt-F2 you get Dash (to run programs). Just hit Esc and try again with Alt-F2 and you'll get the "Run a command" instead this time.

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