XFCE - Shutdown and Reboot buttons greyed-out (SOLVED)

whatshisname · 2011-11-24 17:17:31

This issue cropped up for me a couple of weeks ago. Just sat down to try and find a solution. Followed several suggestions from several posts to no avail.

Finally discovered that the syntax for achieving this in "/etc/sudoers" has evidently changed.

This is what I got from the XFCE site: http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=21331 and is very similar to what's in the Arch Wiki, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Al … o_Shutdown. So I had been using the following line in /etc/sudoers and it had been working:

%users mylaptopname=NOPASSWD: /usr/lib/xfce4/xfsm-shutdown-helper

At some point in an XFCE upgrade the path to "xfsm-shutdown-helper" changed to "/usr/lib/xfce4/session/xfsm-shutdown-helper"

I changed the path to "xfsm-shutdown-helper" but that didn't solve the problem.

Finally I tried this in /etc/sudoers:

%users ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown -h now,/sbin/reboot

And all the usual options in the shutdown menu re-appeared.

Hope this helps someone.

(Edited to show the link to the the XFCE forums and the Wiki.)

Last edited by whatshisname (2011-11-25 16:09:31)

whatshisname · 2011-12-25 17:50:49

Replying to my own post because of what I've discovered since I first posted this.

Most importantly, the fix which I thought had fixed this problem didn't really work. I was snookered into thinking it had. But I've found another solution which appears to be working now, thus this post.

Here's what I've found.

I had no login/display manager on my laptop. I was auto-logging into my desktop with this setting in /etc/inittab:

x:5:once:/bin/su myusername -l -c '/usr/bin/startx >/dev/null 2>&1'

The snooker alluded to above was this: If I booted to a command line and issued "startx" to start XFCE, I would have the shutdown and reboot buttons available on the logout dialog.

But if I booted directly into the desktop, I didn't. It's taken me a while to figure out that this is what was going on.

Even though my old setup had worked for the almost 2 years I've been using Arch and XFCE, some upgrade somewhere in recent months prevented it from working any longer.

My final fix was to install a login manager, in my case, lxdm. And set it to auto log me into my desktop.

I now have the expected reboot and logout menus.

Hope this helps someone. This has been a bear to figure out.

.:B:. · 2011-12-25 18:26:28

ConsoleKit doesn't play nice with su and autologin.

LessWire · 2012-01-21 05:25:01

There must be a solution if you don't want to use a login manager.

I think it could be solved by sending a special dbus message when starting X from inittab. This should be found watching the dbus during startup of a login manager.

ViruSzZ · 2012-01-21 06:35:01

I'm running xfce4 with out using a login manager and am booting straight from inittab ... Had this problem some time ago and resolved it as described here => https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 0#p1014130

Hope that helps.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-11-24 17:17:31

XFCE - Shutdown and Reboot buttons greyed-out (SOLVED)

#2 2011-12-25 17:50:49

Re: XFCE - Shutdown and Reboot buttons greyed-out (SOLVED)

#3 2011-12-25 18:26:28

Re: XFCE - Shutdown and Reboot buttons greyed-out (SOLVED)

#4 2012-01-21 05:25:01

Re: XFCE - Shutdown and Reboot buttons greyed-out (SOLVED)

#5 2012-01-21 06:35:01

Re: XFCE - Shutdown and Reboot buttons greyed-out (SOLVED)

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