I have a new install of Debian 3.1, and something rather odd is happening. I have reinstalled it something like 4 times in the last 3 days and the problem remains.

Sometimes, not all the time, when I go to shut the computer down - all of the usual shut-down text scrolls by, it gets to the line that says *power off* and that, is simply, that. It goes no further and blinking cursor remains. To turn it off at this point I have to force it to turn off (hold the power button down for a count of 10).

Another problem is when I go to reboot from inside Gnome - generally it will reboot fine - the problem cames when it is time to reboot into Debian - it generally hangs up (grey screen with a cursor) and I have to force it to shut down once again. I did turn off the automatic log-in setting thinking that might help, no difference.

Granted, I don't generally reboot or turn my computer off - it is pretty common around the time that I am reinstalling though - especially after tweaking assorted settings and sometimes I will still do a reboot (even if not technically needed)

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. I just moved from Libranet 2.8.1 to Debian 3.1 and I do have to say that this rather odd computer behavior didn't happen with Libranet (which is basically Debian with an Adminmenu).

this looks like a apm/acpi problem. You may consider recompiling the kernel with the proper support for your mainboard, or check at your bios for apm/acpi support.

Yes, power management seems to be your problem. Try installing the latest kernel available (2.6.8).

In your computer BIOS, you can choose different management schemes or turn it off all together. The latest kernel should support ACPI as well as older APM, but YMMV.

just to update, the latest kernel is 2.6.12.4

APM is energy support by the bios, and is older

ACPI is energy support by the OS, is more stable.

Hmmm, I have never recompiled or upgraded a kernel, perhaps it is time to do so...

Compiling a new kernel is always a good experience through.


Dont give up on the first 25 problems lol ...

Well, I was told that the new Debian 3.1 installer allowed you to choose which kernel to install. It didn't.

I had the same kernel under Libranet 2.8.1, while I won't say it was problem free, there were different problems

Ok ok, I will quite griping and print off the topic related to upgrading the kernel. I have NEVER done this, but hey, there is a first time for everything I suppose

It does, when you boot the cd type "linux" for 2.4 kernel and "linux26" for 2.6 kernel.

When/where do you get the chance to do this? Isn't there an input screen or something, or should I just type it as the cd boots? The first input screen that I have seen is to select the language..

When you boot the CD, firstly a prompt comes up with an image of the debian logo and a text at the bottmon saying something like "Press Enter to continue setup."

That's where you have to do this.
http://meninpc.co.uk/picture.png

Ok, I will try it one more time

linux 26...

No spaces between "linux" and "26"

When the boot CD starts and you get "Hit F1 for help or ENTER to boot:", it has a colon at the end. This signifies that you can type text. Type linux26 and hit the enter key and it will install the 2.6 kernel.

I did it, and it worked I did check out the Bios settings for power, but there really wasn't much there - it seemed to be mainly related to what happens with the computer goes on standby (which it never does)

Anyway, I now have the 2.6 kernel, and we will see if that fixes the problem.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions!

--You may have your issue solved by now (the last post was written a few days ago), but...you didn't mention what computer did you run debian on. If it is a pre-ATX computer (an AT), chances are that no operating system will shut it down automatically. Window$ keeps telling "now you can safely turn off the computer", and Debian says "Power down". Dunno if this is the case, anyway


---It may probably be an installation or other stuff issue, perhaps. I have got two computers fairly different one another (a Pentium 200 MMX and an AMD Athlon 1600 xp+) and Debian runs flawlessly on both....