I have my run level set to 4 and I like to use the GDM welcome screen because it allows me to select from all the desktop environments and windows managers I have installed, but one nagging thing about GDM is there is no option to allow me to reboot or shutdown the computer atleast by default so my question is how would I configure GDM to give me these options? Also I've been using gnome alot lately and am noticing that all my ram is getting used on cache space and I would like to know if there's any way I can have it not eat up so much ram so fast?

um. in gdm, click the 'system' button, whereafter you can
select reboot, shutdown, etc. as for ram usage, i will quote
'todd kulesza', the creator of dropline gnome:

"linux lies about it's memory usage.

first, it counts buffered memory as "in-use", so x, which uses
about 40 megs of actual ram but buffers as much as it can if
there's free ram available, will always appear to use about 80%
of your memory. *always*. I've seen it "use" 380 megs of a
512 meg machine before.

secondly, most of that memory is shared between apps. The
gnome libraries should be less than 20 megs when fully loaded,
and each application uses a large chunk of them. That's why
each panel applet claims to use ~8 megs of ram; ~6 megs of
that is shared with every other gnome application, so it's like
6 megs + 2 for each applet you have open, not 8 * the number
of applets.

basically, if your hard drive isn't swapping like crazy, you're
doing okay on memory, no matter what system monitor says"

if anyone can know how gnome works, i think it would be him.

kind regards.

All I see is a "Language" button and a "Session" no "System" button if thats what you mean?

Nevermind, for some reason the system menu was disabled by default.
But I still owe you a thanks since your post helped me pinpoint that option in the gdm.conf file.

you're very welcome.