Arch Linux

vsk

Member

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 70

My Computer Can't Shutdown

Hi!,
My computer is an old (relatively) HP box that runs pretty much exclusively on Intel hardware.

I use Gnome, and I soon realized that there was no shutdown option in the Menus or available as an applet - so I tried to
sudo shutdown -P 0

... and I believe the rc.shutdown script is called, or something; whatever happens, this is the output (not exact):

...
Stopping Process... [DONE]
Sending SIGTERM to all Processes ... [DONE]
...
Type Ctl-D for maintenance, give root password:

and it logs me back in!

Sometimes, I get a completely different output:

---------------
Shutting Down
---------------

System Powering off
System Halted

and the CPU and monitor keep humming on! it doesn't power off at all...

I had this problem in Ubuntu Feisty - if that's a clue to anyone (fixed in gutsy/hardy).

Thanks for the help! I don't want to keep hard powering off..

Last edited by vsk (2008-06-03 03:35:57)

sniffles

Member

Registered: 2008-01-23

Posts: 275

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Try this, as root:

shutdown -h now

For the Ubuntu thing, perhaps this can clear things up: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … +bug/93551 .

new2arch

Member

Registered: 2008-02-25

Posts: 235

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Or you could do (as root) 'chmod +s /sbin/halt' which will give an ordinary user right to shutdown the machine. As user, you'd simply type 'halt -p' in terminal.

moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,676

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

The reason you don't have shutdown in your gnome-menus is probably because you don't use GDM as your display manager.....GNOME needs to be logged into via GDM or else it won't be able to shutdown, or restart or even switch users while the desktop is locked.

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vsk

Member

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 70

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Installing GDM got the correct stuff in the menus, so that part worked ... however all of the commands mentioned above still leave my CPU blue (well, the power button) and humming.
I'm going to sift through Feisty bug reports until I find something.

hrist

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-01-07

Posts: 61

Website

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

only installing gdm does not help, you need to start GNOME via GDM else GNOME can't do a full shutdown which requires root privileges given by GDM

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three - Arch64 | dwm | nvidia

bgc1954

Member

From: Edmonton, AB, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-14

Posts: 1,160

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Ahem...if your hardware is really, really old it probably isn't able to use acpi due to the bios and if so it can only use apm power management, thus there is no option to actually shut off the power.  You have to do it manually, if that's the case.

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elliott

Member

Registered: 2006-03-07

Posts: 296

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Ahem...if your hardware is really, really old it probably isn't able to use acpi due to the bios and if so it can only use apm power management, thus there is no option to actually shut off the power.  You have to do it manually, if that's the case.

Add apm=power-off to grub or lilo and it will shut down fine with APM in most cases.

Sean-Der

Member

Registered: 2007-09-30

Posts: 88

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

May sound stupid but sometimes when BIOS tweaking and so on you may have disabled acpi. I did this once and I ended up messing up my installed system turning it inside and out only to find that a simple BIOS configuration had been messing up another OS Installer

vsk

Member

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 70

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Ahem...if your hardware is really, really old it probably isn't able to use acpi due to the bios and if so it can only use apm power management, thus there is no option to actually shut off the power.  You have to do it manually, if that's the case.

I've run other distros that shut my computer down well, so I don't think that's it. will try kernel options momentarily.

Daenyth

Forum Fellow

From: Boston, MA

Registered: 2008-02-24

Posts: 1,244

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Is your user in the power group?

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vsk

Member

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 70

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

My user is in the power group.

Should the apm line be added as a kernel parameter, or just anywhere in the file?

@Sean-Der,
was the problem resolved?

vsk

Member

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 70

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Thank you very much elliott - the issue is completely resolved.

Adding the apm=power-off to the kernel works perfectly!

jzxu

Member

Registered: 2008-06-23

Posts: 10

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

I tried adding apm=power-off to my kernel parameters at boot, but it didn't work for me. Any other suggestions?

MONODA

Member

Registered: 2008-02-09

Posts: 256

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

i think the correct command is: sudo halt

vsk

Member

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 70

Re: My Computer Can't Shutdown

Would;

sudo /sbin/init 0
or
sudo poweroff

work for you?

Last edited by vsk (2008-06-26 17:07:11)