Shutting Down at the Shell Prompt

Like the Run program option in GNOME, you can use the shutdown command to halt or restart your system from a shell prompt, whether you are working in GNOME, KDE, or the non-graphical environment.

To halt or restart your system from a shell prompt:

• To see a shell prompt, from the panel, click on the Terminal Emulation Program launcher.

• At the shell prompt, type shutdown -r now or shutdown -h now and enter your user account password in the dialog box that appears. The -h means halt and will shut down the system; the -r means reboot and will restart the system.

• In console mode, type shutdown -r now or shutdown -h now and enter your user account password after the Password prompt.

Make certain that you have saved your work before halting or restarting your system from the shell prompt. Running applications will be closed and you will not have the option of saving your work or your session.

Restarting an X Session

If you are having difficulty quitting your X session, (for example, if you get no response when you click on the Log out button in KDE) you can swiftly end the X session and return to the login screen by pressing the [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Backspace] keys. This procedure should be used only as a last resort, however. Make sure you close your running applications and save your work before logging out this way!

	More About Shutting Down
	You can specify the delay between when you issue the shutdown command and its execution. Replace the word now with a "+" and a number; for example shutdown -h +5 will shutdown and halt the system after five minutes have passed.