[lug] Crash during shutdown

[John Karns]

This is a bit late, but I'm catching up on my email from the past few
days...

On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, D. Stimits was reputed to have said:

DS >Giuliano Rescaldani wrote:
DS >> 
DS >> Hello,
DS >>         on my fresly installed Red Hat 6.2, eveything works fine. When I shutdown
DS >> the box, all the procrsses are brought down correctly but at the very last
DS >> steps, just after the "power down" message, it crashes.
DS >> 
DS >>         I think this happens because the OS tries to switch off the PC but fails
DS >> there. The APM is completely disabled at bios level and the AMPD deamon is
DS >> not started. (I would like the OS doesn't try at all to manage power).
DS >
DS >There is a kernel compile option for APM, probably be sure it isn't
DS >available in the kernel. There is in /etc/rc.d/init.d a script for start

AFAIK the option to power off at shutdown only works with ATX style MB's
since these have a 'soft switch' for power control.  So if the machine is
not the ATX style, but the older AT style, enabling this option is
useless.  Most laptops have soft switches.

That said, there is another option to look at in the kernel
configuration.  From /usr/src/linux/Documentation/Configure.help:

Use real mode APM BIOS call to power off
CONFIG_APM_REAL_MODE_POWER_OFF
  Use real mode APM BIOS calls to switch off the computer. This is
  a work-around for a number of buggy BIOSes. Switch this option on if
  your computer crashes instead of powering off properly.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
John Karns                                              jkarns at csd.net
Bogota, Colombia                                  Voice: 57-1-341-0300