Linux full shutdown vs. manual shutdown?
 

Hi,

I have RedHat 9 isntalled on two computers.

On one computer, when I shutdown it goes through the normal shutdown procedure and ends at the message, "Power Down." I then have to manually turn off my computer.

On the other computer, when I shutdown it automatically powers down itself without me having to manually hit the power switch.

So my question is why are some computers able to fully shutdown and other not? It is something in the bios, the motherboard, etc? How can I find out if the first computer supports automatic power downs?

Thanks.

that could be part of it depending on how old the computer is. newer computers should support power off. my guess is that the command that red hat is using isn't quite right. the command that kde and gnome use for powering off automatically on my laptop is:

/sbin/poweroff -p

every ATX -Cabinet have automatic power down so would you please tell
me which type of cabianet you r using .
----------------------------------------------------
welcome \s \t #

You should make sure that you have either the modules "apm" or "acpi" loaded. Also, some bioses don't allow you to turn off via software. There will be an option somewhere in the bios about this.

I have redhat 9 on a dual xeon system. With the uniprocessor kernel it shuts off, but with the smp kernel it doesn't... That's what I call wierd. Any ideas?

Only to state what you already know - if you compile smp support into the kernel, then APM won't work.

I didn't know for sure, now I do...

halt --- i have to manually switch off
shudown -h now/poweroff -automatic

no-automatic poweroff on dual-Opteron system with SMP kernel
 

These posts are interesting - I didn't know that APM was regulating the automatic shutdown/poweroff I'm so familiar with. I'd been seeing this behavior with a new cluster I've been setting up - maybe now I won't waste my time tackling the issue.

Questions:

1) are there any plans/groups working to put APM support in the SMP kernels?

2) If the system reaches the end of the shutdown with the "Power Off" message,
is it safe to shut off the power in an alternate way (like hitting a circuit breaker or
having a UPS shut itself down)?

Thanks!

Just installed Fedora Core 3 on my dual Opteron system. The 2.6.9-1.667smp kernel now does automatic shutdowns and poweroffs.