Power off button acting differently?

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

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On 03/15/2012 04:05 PM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-03-15 at 10:13 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
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>> Pushing the power button, as opposed to holding it, is an ACPI event
>> that is trapped. The action is controlled by
>> /etc/acpi/events/powerconf. That defaults to running
>> /etc/acpi/actions/power.sh. That script checks to see if a power
>> manager is running. If so, the event is passed to the power manager.
>> Is not, the system runs the shutdown command.
>>
>> Now, depending on what desktop you are running, you set what you
>> want to happen by setting the action in the power manager setup.
>> (This is under System Settings -->Power in Gnome.)
>>
>> Mikkel
> ---
> I don't disagree with what you are saying but getting used to
shuting down an operating system
> using the power button is a bad practice. For example on my machine
> holding the power button shuts down the machine while pressing the
> button puts the machine to sleep. I agree this is configurable. But
that
> is in Fedora Linux, on other systems it is treated as a system error.
>
>
Well, the difference between pushing the power button, and holding
to long enough to bypass the OS and turn the system off is rather
pronounced in most systems. But that only applies to systems that
can be powered off by using software. There are still systems around
that use a rocker or push-on/push-off switch to turn them off.

But you do get Windows users that are also use the power button to
have the system shutdown. Exactly what a power button press does is
configurable in the power control panel on Windows as well - at
least in any version of Windows that is using ACPI. For that matter,
what happens when you close the lid on a laptop is also configurable.

I usually have my laptop go to sleep when I close the lid. That
works best for the way I usually use the laptop. I have the power
button configured to make it hibernate. But on my desktop, I have
the power button do a shutdown. I do not use it often, but I have
managed to lock up the system a time or two when playing with new
hardware/software, and it was that, or ssh into the machine and do a
shutdown that way. (Who would have expected a specific video card
and TV tuner card to lock up the system when used together, but each
would work fine with other hardware...)

So there is no one answer to this. That is why it is configurable,
instead of being hard-coded. I think doing a shutdown is a
reasonable default when there is no power manager software running,
and passing it on the the power manager if it is running lets each
user set their preference.

The nice thing about Linux is that the user gets to decide how
things like this work. YMMV

Mikkel
- -- 
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and
taste good with Ketchup!
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