Shutting Down

Q: Shutting Down

What's the right way to shut down or reboot my system? Are there any shortcuts?

A: Putting Away Files

Any method you choose which allows your Red Hat Linux system to put away all its data files and stop running processes is the right way to shut down. Never simply turn off your machine.

Here are two ways you can cleanly shut down your system:

A Shortcut to Rebooting

One of the fastest ways to reboot your system is to press the [Ctrl],[Alt], and[Del] keys all at the same time, from a virtual console.

A virtual console is a character cell interface, unlike the graphical interface of the X Window System. There are several virtual consoles available to you, but the easiest to remember is probably the first one. You can reach it by pressing [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F1].

TipGetting Back
 

To return to your X session from a virtual console, just press the [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F7] keys.

To reboot from a virtual console, first move to a virtual console by pressing [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F1], then press [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del] to reboot.