Everytime I have to shutdown or restart (from KDE), I first need to log off, and then use the login to either shutdown or restart.
How to add Shutdown and Restart options to the KDE menu?

Well one way is to open the run dialog (normally Alt-F2) and type 'halt' or 'reboot'.

One disadvantage with the currentl KDE menu is that you first need to log off. That causes the X server to restart (I guess).

GNOME has both reboot and a halt options, though.

Perhaps if you are set up to boot directly into the GUI (runlevel 5); otherwise, KDE's logout just drops you to shell. You're right though- I would think there should be a way to specify halt or restart from within KDE, but I haven't been able to find it...

Anyone?

DMR: default runlevel in SuSE is 3. It doesn't like 5 it seems. Once when I changed that to 5, SuSe refused to boot.

try this out - it may not work, but then i don't use the gui much...

can't one create a shortcut / add an item (actually a command) onto the start menu? then when it prompts for the command to execute, type in "halt" or "reboot", as might be the case..

try this out - it may not work, but then i don't use the gui much...

can't one create a shortcut / add an item (actually a command) onto the start menu?( there's a wizard to do that, if i remember correctly) in place of the command to execute, type in "halt" or "reboot", as might be the case..

Oh, right- SuSE differs from the Redhat-based distros. In SuSE, I think runlevel 3 boots directly into X and runlevel 2 should be the shell. Runlevel 5 isn't implemented in SuSE; no wonder your system didn't like it- sorry about that.

That's a possibility, although I haven't tried it yet. One problem I can see is that the halt command can only be run as root (unless you change permissions). Since safe practise is not to log on as root unless absolutely necessary, and changing perms on the halt command could invite trouble, the approach wouldn't work for normal user accounts.

the halt command doesn't require root authority(at least on the RH/Mandrake systems i've worked on), although it's a call to the /sbin/init command. In ordinary remote-login environments, halt is commonly used to shut down the client machines, not the server, so i don't think halt/reboot requires one to be root.

Om my Mandrake 8 box, halt and shutdown do require that you be root to execute them (as a local user, not remote), although the weird thing is that I don't remember that being an issue with my Redhat 6.2 install. Unfortunately, I wiped Redhat during my last Hardware-Go-Round, so I can't check it out.

Thanks for your efforts and replies, DMR and oneuponzero..

KDE could have added that option by default. I am surprised it isn't there.

Presently in KDE, any normal user has to press the mouse 6 times
in order to shutdown/restart.

In any Linux distro, any user can shutdown the machine (unlike in Unix). So, why not just place a button somewhere at the bottom panel which when pressed, shuts down the machine without hassles?

well, i did get the halt thingie to work!! - on mandrake 8.1, i tried the following..
1. started the menu editor, menudrake, or something like that - right-click on the KDE button and select 'configure'.
2. select add, then type "/usr/bin/halt" or "/usr/bin/reboot" in the 'run command' box.
3. select an icon ( there are a LOT to choose from) for the button, and then click 'save'.

You're done!

(BTW, the fact that these executables lie in/usr/bin, as opposed to /sbin or /usr/sbin, do show that they are user-executable.)

well, all's well that ends well!

I don't know if your using it but if you can get a hold of KDE 2.2.1 or there abouts it has those options in the Gui when you select logout from any users Gui. Logout, Reboot, Halt. To date I have not had any problems with it.

I made two icons:

Right-click the desktop, create new link to application, name HALT!, execute halt -n for shutdown; name REBOOT!, execute shutdown -r now for reboot; choose appropriate names, icons. Quick and easy.