hiya, i recently disposed of Windows and stuck on Mandrake 10 Community Edition instead.... everything seems to be going ok (not that i really understand it) but when trying to turn off my computer it all goes wrong.

I choose shutdown and it starts the process but on the screen where it says "Shutting down" (or whatever) and has the progress bar, the bar gets stuck about 5% from the end and the computer stays on for ever and wont power off (not even with the power button) i have to pull the plug

Can anyone help?
(Oh and in newbie terms too pls - i dont really understand it!)

Thanx much!

Computer is PIII 450MHZ, 256 RAM, 15GB

while it's shutting down, hit escape so see the terminal output.
there might be errors printed there.

Also usually you need ACPI or APM enabled before Linux can fully shut off the system.

There are no errors when in verbose mode, it just gets to "Power Off" and then gets stuck there.....

How do i go about enabling ACPI or APM?

Cheers!

You must determine what your machine uses first.

This is usually found in it's documentation.

Once you know it you must enable ACPI or APM accordingly.

Mandrake by default adds a kernel parameter called "acpi=ht".

This is done for compatibility with some "broken" motherboard chipsets but not needed on many machines.

It has the side effect of disabling the poweroff on many computers.

Instead remove that entry on the corresponding line (not the WHOLE LINE!) in /etc/lilo.conf and re-run the lilo command while logged in as root.


If your machine freezes during boot, reboot, choose another kernel, and again modify the file, but add "noapic" or "nolapic".

The above gets the kernel to recognize (and power down) your system.

Then if it works as root type in

chkconfig --add acpid

service acpid start

This will enable OTHER acpi functions including multimedia keys on your keyboard (but you may need a helper program such as acme, "urpmi acme"), orderly shutdown on powerbutton press, etc.

On laptops this will also enable lid closing evens, fan control, thermal monitoring, etc.

Hi there,

I am also a very newbie in Linux, and I had the very same problem.
Solution I found:

shutdown -h now

(-h stands for halt, which *really* means shutting down your system)

shutdown -r now

(-r stands for reboot)

HTH,
Adrian

If shutdown -h worked for you, then you did NOT have the same problem.

Had the same problem on a laptop, until I found they had added a new trick for accidental shutdown -after 9.2 I think.

You have to hold the key in for several seconds before it will shutdown, maybe this happens with the
desktop. I have 10.1 but I switch off the power now when it says shutdown, as I expect one day they will get it right.

IF the system is truely halted (which I doubt) then holding the power key is ok.

However usually when a "halt" occurs you see the message that it is safe to power down.

It appears only after the acpi function is sent that normally cuts power. At this points the drives are flushed and unmounted so a poweroff is ok.

However as I said, it is unlikely that this is happening as you do not see this message.

This also means that your drives are probably mounted and unflushed, so you may develope file system problems and errors over time that even the journal cannot correct.

Holding the power key is not a solution as it is akin to pressing the reset button while the computer is processing database records; namely not a good idea.