Shutting Down

Q: "Right way" to Shut 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:

From your X session: Go to the Panel's Main Menu Button => Log out then choose Logout, Halt or Reboot. You can also choose to save your current setup, which means that the programs which are running when you log out will return when you log back in.
If you select either Halt or Reboot, you'll be required to enter your login password after you press the OK button to verify your selection.
From the shell prompt: In an Xterm window, type shutdown -r now or shutdown -h now. The -r means "reboot" and the -h means "halt." You will be required to enter your password before these commands are executed.
From the login screen: Go to Option => System. You can choose whether to halt or reboot your system, without a required password.

A Shortcut to Rebooting

One of the fastest ways to reboot your system is to perform the "three-fingered salute" -- Pressing the Ctrl-Alt-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.

Getting 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.