I have been killing myself all day trying to figure out how to shutdown Mandriva Free 2006 (which I installed this morning). Everything else is working great, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to shut it down or reboot. In the log out screen, the only options are "End Current Session" and "Cancel." In the Documentation it says there should also be the options for shut down and reboot, but they are not there. So I tried ctrl-alt-backspace, and it just logs me out, it doesn't shut down. I then went into the terminal and tried there, and this was the result:

[shawn@localhost ~]$ shutdown -r now
bash: shutdown: command not found

I am dual booting with windows as there are still programs I need to use, so I need to be able to switch between the 2. Any help would be appreciated, this should be a simple task, but I guess I'm half retarded

You must be root to shutdown, reboot, or otherwise manipulate init.

shutdown: in a terminal window type in poweroff and hit enter


if mandriva does not actually poweroff the computer itself, once it says system halted it will be safe to poweroff with the button on the PC tower...

In LE2005 after clicking on "End Current Session" and you are back at the main Login there are further options at the bottom left and center of the screen.

I've used Mandrake 10.1, 10.2, Mandriva 2006, Kubuntu 5.10, Linspire 5.0, Xandros 3.0, Suse 9.3, Fedora Core 3 and Knoppix, and in all of them, I've been able to click on the main menu, click on logout/shutdown, and shutdown and reboot my computer as an ordinary user. I think it's irregular, at the very least for this distribution, not to have those options. Which desktop environment are you using? Should be the same for all of them, but just out of interest.

I tried it after logging into root, and I had the same result.

Poweroff in the terminal gave me the same result:

[shawn@localhost ~]$ poweroff
bash: poweroff: command not found

I do not have any menus that include rebooting or shutting down. I can choose other desktops to use, but nothing about shutting down.

I have tried GNOME and KDE, but neither one has a way to shut down. I have re-installed the OS and it didn't fix anything. I might try another distro, but I enjoy this one so far. I just can't figure out why I cannot shut down...

Mystery to me as to why you don't have at least the menu options. Have you tried, as root, "halt", "init0", or "init6"? Even if they worked though, that's going to be, at the very least, inconvenient for shutting down.

Different distros have different ways for changing the runlevel of the machine.
Regardless, you must be root to reboot, shutdown, or otherwise manipulate init.
Some distros will circumvent this using sudo, for example, or changing the mode on the executables. This allows for several different methods of shutting the machine down. Some are GUI based, others are command line based. Either will invoke init to change the runlevel, and process the shutdown scripts to properly, and safely reboot the machine.
You are not root.

Do this:
There are several things that are distro specific, but for the most part, they are reworkings for convenience only. Some things are ubiquitous across all flavors of linux, and Unix in general. init is one of them.

I have stumbled upon the same issue after upgrading from Mandriva LE 2005 to Mandriva 2006. There is no shutdown/restart option in the menu anymore, only Log Out. While it works to log out and then power off by simply pressing the power button, it is very cumbersome. Of course, you can run /sbin/halt or /sbin/reboot in the Run Comman line, but once again it's cumbesome as you have to type in your root password. What happened to the Shut Down menu option? Is Mandriva getting fancy with ways to get people to pay for it?

P.S. I don't mean to be a smart ass but this is Mandriva Distro section of the forum, so why are people running other distros chipping in with their useless "Different distros have different ways for changing the runlevel of the machine.Regardless, you must be root to reboot, shutdown, or otherwise manipulate init." - this is so off the mark. In Mandriva LE 2005 you DON'T HAVE TO BE ROOT to shutdown or reboot...

typing the word halt in a terminal will shut down also.

Ok, all these suggestions, as stated, are inconvenient at the least. So, here's my next question: Since Mandriva didn't feel the need to include a shutdown and reboot button in their menu, is there a way to program these suggestions into an icon I can click, or even add it to the log out menu? Even if it just sits on the desktop, having something I can just click on will make it a lot easier than going through the opening of a terminal, typing in the root password, then typing in a command to shut down. Any opinions?

i have installed mandriva 2005 and 2006 on both my server and laptop... on my server i dont have the shutdown/restart option... only thru the command line where i type 'reboot' or 'halt' as root... on the other hand i do have these options on my laptop... just like in any other distro.. the only difference between the two installations i can think of that would have given these two situations is the security level i chose... of course high for the laptop and higher for my server..and when u look at it this way it does make sense... the higher security level is meant for servers and i wouldnt want any 'ol body to turn my server off... unless it was me.... with the root password... as for the normal security setting (high) mandriva allows any user to turn the box off...

now is there a way to change the security settings after the installation is done... hmmm i dont know... somebody out there has figured it out for sure... come out wherever u are!

hope i made sense to you all

take care...

ok.. I'll put my $0.02 in here... In the last three months or so that I've been messing with linux I've installed
Mandrake 10.1
Mandriva 2005le 10.2
Kubunto 5.04
Mandriva 2006 rc2
went back to 2005le
got the free 2006 official and still running it...

On every install I've always had the full menu when right clicking on desktop.
End Current Session
Turn Off Computer
Restart Computer
and
Cancel...

Seems kinda odd how so many people are haveing trouble with this... Maybe it's what you're choosing for packages.. I must say for a total n00b installing mandriva is a breeze..

Well, I copied the entire DVD to the harddrive during installation, and selected to install every package as HD space is not a concern. I do not have thos options...not sure what to tell you, but that is why I asked the question.

Ok, now THIS makes perfect sense to me, and is quite possibly the reason. THANK YOU for your input. I shose higher both times I installed it because I wanted to figure out how to host a webpage through linux. This definately seems like it could be the reason for me not having those options...which is a shame because I can't run any server software with it in High setting, but I can't shut down in Higher...which means time for another distro...

Thanks again,

Shawn