Re: Logout interface, Halt checkbox

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom infernal-iceberg com>]

kop meme com (2001-07-20 at 2059.25 -0500):
> The GNOME Usability Study Report at http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ut1_report/logging_out.html
> recommends that the logout dialog Halt "checkbox label reads 'Suspend (Halt
> - stops the processor)'".  I belive it should say 'Halt (stop for
> poweroff)'.  This better describes what happens when the checkbox is
> chosen.  (Usability Principle: Match between system and the real world.)

We have been discussing it on IRC. It seems halt on Sun machines does
the nasty thing: stops the system without waiting. Under Linux and
others, it does the nice thing, only halt if in run level 0, otherwise
call shutdown (which make the machine go down nicelly, syncing disks
etc).

For info about all this "ls -l /sbin/halt /sbin/reboot /sbin/shutdown
/sbin/poweroff" and "man shutdown" & "man halt". I guess GNOME coders
where thinking about this, not about Sun machines.

So the screen could be Logout <username>, Reboot computer and Turn off
computer (with ATX machines it would go to power off, with AT it would
go to a "machine is stopped" msg, halt). IMHO it is better to use long
phrases that do not mix with others things, as halt as demostrated.
Also no need for parenthesis and you can specifi "who" to logout.

Why not suspend? Cos some computers can go into suspend mode (laptops,
and you can suspend without logout), others will not be able to
suspend at all (wrong term). Why no halt with stop for power off? Cos
machine will not stop, it will make noise for 10-60 sec and then it
will stop (not direct term).

BTW, about security of all this, the admin can set it to not show the
dialog, and to not allow the use of such commands, which is more
important. I did in the past, so only some users could reboot the
machine.

GSR