I am rather embarrassed to say I don't now how to close Linux (in Suse I use KDE and justr click on shutdown).
In books I see the shutdown and the halt command - what do I use in Debian??
(I have just installed Debian - nothing working yet, but I can log on)

Also, if I type halt or shutdown I get this annoying and very loud beep - how do I turn it off?

If you are on a command line, just type the following to shutdown immediately, (as root):

shutdown -h now

...to reboot:

shutdown -r now

Josh

You should have shutdown and halt available to you.

Note: they are in /sbin so normal users won't have them in their path.

you have another choice......."poweroff"

How do I shut down if I log on as a user?

shutdown -h now
works fine apart from the beep if I log on as user or type su!!

If I power off then I have to wait for a file check next time I log on.

Also this beep is very irritating - it is so loud it makes everyone in the room jump. There has to be a way to switch it off.

You can also try to press <ctrl>+<alt>+<del>
when properly configured in your /etc/inittab:

# What to do when CTRL-ALT-DEL is pressed.
ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -h now

or type the command above in your command line.

Concerning your beep-problem:
If you are in the command line (bash) a
<set nobeep> should do the trick. If you are in X-Windows then
you have to do <set -b> I think.
(I have done it at work but can't remember by heart...)

Typing
<set nobeep>
did not work - the beep is coming through the speakers (of course I can unplug the speakers) which does mean that Debian has found the sound card I suppose. Still I must stop this irritating noise.

I haven't got X-Windows to work yet, when presented with the option to load packages I chse XFree86 but no Desktop system - thought I would choose later - I also assumed that TK would work without KDE etc. but I think that is wrong as when I tried to use TK from python it complained that the graphics name was not there - or something similar - not sure of the exact message and am typing this from work at the moment.

login as a normal user, in a command line, su to root, then issue "gdmconfig"(I assume you are on gdm).

Option 'basic'--> Tab 'login behavior'--> enable 'show the system menu(reboot,shutdown)'
Then you will get an option called system in your login greeter.

gdmconfig was not recocgnised - what is gdm?

The PC-Speaker has nothing to do with your soundcard!
It's independent. So you can plug it off... ;-)

GDM is a derivate like KDM from XDM and stands for X-Display-Manager.
This prog handles the graphical Login-Procedure and X-Session Management.

I don't use a graphical login procedure - I have only got as far as using the terminal log in.

In fact I haven't got graphics working at all yet - so I am only using the terminal window.

Terminal Window?
This means you have a X-System with a xterm?

Or do you mean pure text in the console?

Anyway, read <man bash>, search for bell.
Write in /etc/inputrc (system-wide) or ~/.inputrc (User only)
set bell-style none

This should make everything silent what uses the readline-library (bash for example).

I mean pure text in the console.

I tried adding the line to inputrc as you suggested.
Before I added this line if I pressed backspace at the prompt I got the same beep and after I insterted this line there was no beep.

However, when I halt the system I still get the beep!!!!

Maybe getting a little closer to the solution...

I guess that is it then - no one knows how to fix this?

I did have one thought - if I get a keyboard error (i.e. try to backspace when I am at the start of the line) I get the same beep - in other systems this beep usually comes from the speaker on the motherboard - if there is some way to find out where this is configured, after all if I did not have a sound card presumably the beep would be using the motherboard speaker.

If all else fails I shall try to reinstall. Thank you for the help so far.

you could use libranet 2.8 as its based on debian and its easy to use.