K, i'm a total linux newbie and am getting used to linux on a dual boot system. I'm missing a few little things i had in windows. Was wondering if someone could help. I'm sure linux supports it, just cant find where.


Soft shutdowns. This is a hassle as i normally run out of the room to get to work and hit the power button on the computer which then tells the system to shutdown and turn off. Linux doesnt seem to wanna do this. I hit the power button and it turns the computer off (eeeeek, i know how linux is picky about shutting down fully). Is there a soft shutdown option which i can configure?

As root try

shutdown -h now

halt should also work. reboot should shutdown and restart as does controle,alt,delete on many distros.
Shutting down just by pulling the plug can do bad things.
Not so bad if you use a journalling file system such as reiserfs or ext3.

True, but i need to type this everytime i want to shutdown. I wanted to know if theres a program or an option i need to turn on so i can just hit my "power button" on the front of my PC to tell it to shutdown , like in windows. Or am i asking too much of linux?

You can change the function of ctrl-alt-del to shutdown the compter. Edit the /etc/inittab file. I believe you can reprogram the power switch but I can't remember how.

Thats exactly what i want, does anyone know how to reprogram the power switch to make linux commence shutdown procedures after it is pressed?