Archives For November 30, 1999

The graphical auto shutdown app KShutdown released version 5.90 with feature to reboot from Linux into another OS automatically.

KShutdown is a free open-source app that provides a simple Qt based user interface. It allows users to automatically shutdown, restart, hibernate, sleep, log-out, or run a command on certain time, after a period of time, on user inactivity or other event.

The app is getting more and more powerful. The latest 5.90, beta for next 6.0 release, introduced experimental multi-booting support. User can now automatically reboot from Linux into another OS, such as Windows, from Grub menu entries.

KShutdown reboot into another OS

The new feature needs administrator user privilege to get access ‘/boot/grub/grubenv’. The app however does not apply it properly so far, and user need to start it manually via sudo kshutdown from command line.

And it does not read the Grub menu automatically, though it can be set manually in ‘Tools -> Configure KShutdown -> Restart’. Use the app ‘Grub Customizer’ to get the menu entries.

Manually write Grub Menu entries (from grub-customizer)

Other features in KShutdown 5.90 include:

  • Add “File Monitor” trigger (detects a file remove/create).
  • New configurable global shortcuts to show/hide main window, actions window.
  • Add more “journalctl” commands in ‘Tools -> Run’ menu.
  • Basic Qt 6 support.
  • Add Help → System Information menu to show basic system and app info.
  • Various minor UI tweaks and improvements.
  • And various bug-fixes.

How to get KShutdown in Ubuntu Linux

KShutdown is available in Ubuntu universe repositories though the package is old! Sadly, there’s no binary package so far for the latest release.

Grab the source tarball from the link page above, install the dependencies via command:

sudo apt install cmake debhelper extra-cmake-modules libkf5config-dev libkf5configwidgets-dev libkf5plasma-dev libkf5globalaccel-dev libkf5idletime-dev libkf5notifications-dev libkf5notifyconfig-dev libkf5crash-dev

You may then follow the ‘README.html’ file from source folder to compile the package yourself.

How to Schedule Automatic Shutdown in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: September 14, 2014

Want to shutdown, restart, or hibernate your Ubuntu machine automatically on a schedule? Well, it can be done easily by a graphical tool called ComplexShutdown.

ComplexShutdown is a simple python script for those who hate Linux commands to schedule shutdown Ubuntu desktop with an easy to use graphical interface.

This simple GUI features:

  • Automatic Shutdown, Log off, Restart, Standby (Suspend), Hibernate, and run a custom command.
  • Supports sound and message notification, Unity integration,
  • Run action in days:hours:minutes:seconds.
  • Run action after computer idled days:hours:minutes:seconds.
  • Run action in select date and time.

Install ComplexShutdown in Ubuntu:

Download the latest .deb package from the link below. Then double click to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button.

Once installed, open it from Unity Dash and enjoy!

Tip: due to bug, options for “after idle” and “at” are grayed out. I got it fixed in my 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 by accident. See what I did:

  1. Downloaded & installed the complexshutdown_0.5_all.deb
  2. Run the app for a while and found that “after idle” and “at” options not available.
  3. Removed complexshutdown 0.5 by running below command in terminal:
    sudo apt-get remove complexshutdown
  4. Installed the complexshutdown_0.4_amd64/i386.deb (available in above link)
  5. Run the app and found that “at” option worked, but “after idle” not.
  6. Finally I removed complexshutdown_0.4 and reinstalled the 0.5 version. Found that all works!