How do you shut down the pc?

**Okay123** · 08-20-2005

I know i might ask alot of questions, but i'm just started using Debian, you know.
How do you shut down the pc? I can find a Logout... button in the KDE-Launch-menu, but not any shutdown buttons. Then i use Logout... it goes back to the black/white place there you can type things. I tried typing shutdown in that field, and then came up a big list of shutdown-types: "-a Use a quick shutdown" "-F Halt is a shutdown" and alot of other things. I then tried typing -A but it just said "bash: -a: is not a command" And it said that with every -letter i tried.
Now what should i do? If i just use the power-off-button in the black/white place (DOS, isn't it called that?) and i then start it up again, it haven't saved any of the things that i have done so far, and that might be because it ain't shutting down correctly.

**aysiu** · 08-20-2005

Try typing this:

shutdown -h now

**onlinebacon** · 08-20-2005

You can al use the command halt

**Okay123** · 08-20-2005

Thank you guys, i found out.

**chris-harry** · 08-21-2005

Ctrl + Alt + Del seems to work for me (even though it reboots)...

**jlgreer1** · 08-21-2005

The man page for shutdown will give you a number of options.

shutdown must be executed by root

ctl-alt-del will usually shut down your computer but can be disabled if you don't want a regular user to shut down your linux system. The power switch would have to be disabled in that case.

I know it is a pain in the neck when one of my kids shut down my computer when I was compiling a long project.

I once lost a lot of work when little Jeffrey thought the red button was interesting and gave it a push at the wrong time.

Jeff

**DoctorDan** · 08-21-2005

i can also use 'poweroff' which is the same as 'shutdown -h now'

**borromini** · 08-21-2005

I press the power button - nice and easy

. I enabled ACPI

**jens** · 08-22-2005

...or just keep it running (after all, it's all build on a very stable server system)