Re: Shutdown and restart

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me>]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:00 PM, Allan E. Registos <allan registos smpc steniel com ph> wrote:

I think it is more appropriate for now to comment on this list regarding the subject of Shutdown/Restart instead at bugzilla as Andre Klapper[1] suggested.

The thing is, UI freeze has already passed.  We can't really make any changes to the UI at this time.  So while we can talk about it we can't make any change prior to release.  The change isn't too bad I think.  If we document that we need to do "press alt" as part of the change then that might work.  Also, distros might decide that they need to add the shutdown option and might do that on their own.  But I don't think continuing to talk about it here is going to contribute to any significant changes prior to release given our deadlines.

sri

>> 
>> There must be an option to power off the system at the login page. It is an
>> obvious feature.
>No, its not!

>Let's think about any other electronic device. (TV/Phones/MusicPlayers/...)
>They all have only 1 button to turn the application ON.
>To turn it OFF, we again have to use that very same button.
>Do any of those applications have a menu for shutdown? Why not?

Traditionally, Televisions are dumb, they do not have any menu(or with very minimal menu) save for the volume indicator, channel, brightness, contrast etc. So adding a shutdown option is an added value to a television, *not* a required feature. Because people traditionally used to turn off/on TV via a physical button or suspend their TVs via remote. They do not need to have another line of manual on how to turn off/on their TVs. Even for the sake of safety, power and environmental reasons, the government even advised us against using suspend via remote, because some people thought it is equal to power/off which is not, but to actually turn it off completely then unplug.

Phones, your hands is already on the keypad, it makes sense.
Smart Phones with no physical buttons, a power button must be provided on screen.
Music players, the classic ones, if you refer to them, they do not have any screen to put the option of turning it off.

While a computer has a physical "power on" button, logically we can use it for powering down the system, I think, Windows XP offered this by default. 
First, there is no harm as someone said in this list by adding the Shutdown option, because your hands are now on the keyboard and mouse, it is easier for us to choose between "Suspend and Shutdown" by using the mouse, instead of moving your hands to the physical Power On/Off button. 
Second, there are valid reasons why the physical button should not be used to turn off the computer for some people, such as my child accidentally pressing it.  
Third, it is an additional administrative overhead where you will receive calls from time to time how to turn off the machine, and you have to tell them to press the Alt key. this list.
Lastly, 

>
>Why do computers alone need a menu item to shutdown? 
>Let's just use the very same button we use to turn ON the system to turn it
>OFF
>

Because computers as we knew, are smart, they will respond to every valid command sent by the user, including the shutdown command shown at the user's menu. I think and believe it won't clutter the user's menu.

While traditionally TVs have no processing power or very expensive to build just to display a shutdown menu on screen.

>
>Is anyone left wondering how to turn off the TV ? (atleast I havent seen any TV
>which has a menu to turn it OFF)
>

Google TV, Web TV, Apple TV, I do not know if they provided that option.

>
>Last I heard there was some discussion of implementing Shutdown for long button
>press. Not sure where that is right now.
>

That might be interpreted by the users that they need to forcibly shutdown the computer. When you long press the physical power button, the motherboard will going to shutdown the system regardless of the OS state, and as far as I know
  this is only use as a last resort if there is no other option available to power down the computer.

Kind regards,
Allan

[1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=643457#c22

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