[PLUG] Shutdown interrupted

David Fleck david.fleck at mchsi.com
Sat Feb 23 14:27:22 UTC 2013


Another vote for "Shutdown Anyway".  Again, not that it helps you much, 
sorry.

But it is an occasion for me to complain about yet another instance of 
what this old UNIX crank sees as the creeping Windows-ization of Linux, at 
least in popular newbie-oriented distros like Ubuntu.  There comes a point 
when hiding complexity from the user becomes harmful, and cryptic system 
messages like this strike me as a good example.

*What* program is still running?
What PID?
What lockfile?

Come on, Ubuntu, would giving up those bits of information really be so 
hard?


On Tue, 19 Feb 2013, wes wrote:
> Without getting into the specifics, and I realize that this may not be all
> that helpful to you, but I thought it may provide a little perspective:
>
> if this screen popped up on my laptop, I would click Shutdown Anyway
> without hesitation or a second thought.
>
> -wes
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Randy Stapilus <stapilus at ridenbaugh.com>wrote:
>
>> I've been running Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop about half a year, generally
>> without problem, but now I have a potential problem - a question at least.
>> With the idea of avoiding a problem.
>>
>> When I try to shut down, after having closed all the apps (that I'm aware
>> of), I hit the command to do so then get a window saying:
>>
>> "A program is still running."
>> Unknown - not responding
>> "Waiting for the program to finish. Interrupting the program may cause you
>> to lose work."
>>
>> There are three button options available - lock screen; cancel; shut down
>> anyway.
>>
>> To this point - this has been going on for some days - I've been responding
>> with "cancel," but eventually I'll need to shut down, one way or another.
>> (Besides this glitch, the computer has been working fine.) I've tried
>> checking for odd processes (that might usefully be killed) in the system
>> monitor, but nothing jumps out at me.
>>
>> I've also seen a reference to Firefox causing something like this to
>> happen, but I don't use Firefox - and have removed it from the launcher
>> (though I haven't disinstalled it).
>>
>> I suppose I could "shut down anyway," but I don't know what the
>> consequences may be - and a Google search for the error message pulled up a
>> couple of vague references to file corruption, which is worrisome. Or I
>> could try something like the SysRq+ALT+REISUB shutdown, but again, I'm not
>> sure if that's a totally safe way under the circumstances.
>>
>> Any thoughts, suggestions?
>>
>> Randy Stapilus
>> www.ridenbaugh.com
>> Northwest politics and public affairs
>> WA, OR, ID Weekly Briefings
>> 503-852-0010
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--
David Fleck
david.fleck at mchsi.com




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