This is a problem that i saw occur on many slack installations, on different computers, and im wondering how to fix it.
When the halt command is given, the system sends TERM and KILL signals to proceses, then goes on to save system time to hardware clock, and freezes, i can't do anything but take power away. Otherwise the system works perfectly normal.
This problem eventually gets fixed if i compile a new kernel (same version of the kernel, just a new compile) but not always.
How can i fix this, since it's very annoying because the system doesn't power off automatically like it should, but freezes and it happened that i walked away a couple of times forgeting about it, and it stayed on for a whole weekend because of this.
So is there a solution?
Thanks
-NSKL

If you modprobe apm it will power off with halt or shutdown -h "now".

I guess i didnt explain myself well, APM is compiled into the kernel, and works no problem, but it jnever gets to the stage where APM should power off the computer because it freezes on
"Saving system time to hardware clock"
even on reboots. This problem occured to me many times on different computers and different versions of slack (8, and 8.1). I don't see what causes it, because i never mess with clock, except using timeconfig to setup my time zone.
I will try to recompile the kernel without "enhanced RTC" (real time clock) support and that should get it fixed for the time being, but im still curious why does this happen.
Thanks
-NSKL

I'd be leaving the RTC support alone and look closer at what options you've enabled for apm. This is what I config for apm,
CONFIG_PM=y
# CONFIG_ACPI is not set
CONFIG_APM=m
# CONFIG_APM_IGNORE_USER_SUSPEND is not set
# CONFIG_APM_DO_ENABLE is not set
# CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE is not set
# CONFIG_APM_DISPLAY_BLANK is not set
# CONFIG_APM_RTC_IS_GMT is not set
# CONFIG_APM_ALLOW_INTS is not set
# CONFIG_APM_REAL_MODE_POWER_OFF is not set

My APM config is identical to yours, and it used to shutdown just fine, but for no apparent reason, two days ago it started freezing at
"saving system time to hardware clock"
I recompiled the kernel, but still didnt boot it, when i reboot the system i hope it'll get solved, if not i'll come back here to cry for help
thanks
-NSKL

Ya, disabling enhananced RTC solved the problem. I still dont understand why this occurs, on both computers, with both slack 8.0 and 8.1.
Maybe its a issue with the motherboard. Both computers have the same motherboard, Asus a7v if i recall well.
-NSKL