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I installed Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS via USB drive--everything functioning okay--and downloaded 150+ updates. I used the shut down command, and the computer wouldn't turn off. The computer is an Acer Aspire one netbook. I needed to install a driver for the Canon printer, and a CD/DVD writing programme. I have tried the on/off switch, ESC, CTRL+ALT+DELETE.

Nil
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4 Answers4

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Open console with Ctrl+Alt+T, then type:

shutdown -h now

One more alternative (less safe, but works too):

sudo halt

If that doesn't work too, try to kill X server first, then shutdown after X restarts:

sudo killall -9 Xorg
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Hit Control-Alt-F1, login, and then enter sudo shutdown -hP now which should shut your system down.

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Maybe there's another user signed in. Then Ubuntu wouldn't shut down.

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If you hit F8 on your splash screen logout, watch for the verbose logout, especially any line that says something related to 'plymouthd has been excluded from killing...". If you see this, then the protected state of plymouthd is most-likely causing your harddrive to be prevented from re-mounting in read-only state for the logout.

If this is the case, this is a known-bug (albeit, apparently only Redhat will admit that, at this point), related to the logout splash screen being protected from being killed at logout. There are a lot of band-aids being offered to fix this issue, however none of them that I have found, have resolved the issue for HP or Dell laptops (efforts like taking ownership at root for plymouthd, etc.)

Hard-powering down by holding your power button can be detrimental to hardware (like harddrives), so I am not sure why this is not of higher importance to Ubuntu, when Redhat has already got a bug-ticket in on this Fedora-related issue. Going to 'verbose logout' does not stop plymouthd from causing related logout problems, though.