Shutting down from a console you're not using.

ConnorBehan · 2007-10-18 02:10:10

As described by many users of fglrx or r128 on old cards... when shutting down from inside X, there is a very good chance that the computer will freeze before it finishes shutting down.

Nothing I can do saves that and from others I hear the only way to complete the shutdown is to ssh into the machine and issue that command.

This led me to believe that if the shutdown command comes from an outside source it will finish whether or not the console running X has frozen. I tried this script:

#!/bin/bash 
rm /home/dummy
until [ 6 -eq 9 ]; do
  if [ -e /home/dummy ]; then
    poweroff
  else
    sleep 5
  fi
done

And used touch /home/dummy to turn off the computer. The script runs in console 2 so the poweroff command came from console 2 but i was running X in console 1. Nevertheless I just experienced another lockup and the computer would not shut down.

Any idea why? When someone ssh's into the machine and types "poweroff" the actual command that turns off this computer is coming from sshd correct? And the reason it works is because sshd does not run in the same console as X, it starts up as a daemon before you even login to a console at all. Does that mean if I somehow make the above script into a daemon and start it before logging in, touch /home/dummy will shutdown successfully all the time?

I need some way of shutting down (and using ssh all the time from another machine isnt practical) and I'm really confused as to why sshd can shutdown when console 1 is frozen but console 2 cannot shutdown when console 1 is frozen. The only way to avoid the freeze would be to turn off 3D acceleration and from everything I've read this means starting X without 3D. I'd love to know if there's a way to turn off 3D in the middle of an X session.

Does anyone have solutions? Or am I stuck waiting until I have a server which automatically shuts down my laptop over ssh, when the laptop tells the server it wants to shut down?

Lone_Wolf · 2007-10-18 20:17:09

What method do you uses to start X ?

ConnorBehan · 2007-10-19 21:03:11

I type startx from the console.

ConnorBehan · 2007-10-31 20:19:38

Hopefully this will become a non-issue soon as kernel 2.6.23 makes the chance of freezing on shutdown seem like only 1%.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-10-18 02:10:10

Shutting down from a console you're not using.

#2 2007-10-18 20:17:09

Re: Shutting down from a console you're not using.

#3 2007-10-19 21:03:11

Re: Shutting down from a console you're not using.

#4 2007-10-31 20:19:38

Re: Shutting down from a console you're not using.

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