Hi,

1) When I'm doing a server install as well as a desktop install, I always start from a minimal install, then add components as needed. Now I noticed that on a minimal system (no X11, no GNOME), when doing either 'halt' or 'shutdown -h now', the machine halts... but doesn't switch off the power. The user has to do it manually. (I vaguely remember that on older Slackware versions, one had to manually load the apm module). On the other hand, once I install a graphical environment ('yum grouinstall "X Window System"', 'yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"'), shutting down the machine also shuts down the power.

Q: how can I switch off the power on a machine with just a basic install?

2) When installing a GNOME environment, there's a sort of graphical system update notifier daemon in the system tray, which occasionally tells me "There are 3 updates available" or something. How can I deactivate this thing? I'm meant to install this in our public libraries, and I want the average user - who barely knows how to handle a mouse, left alone system updates - to be confronted as little as possible to gory system details.

Q: how can I turn the system update notifier off... or even uninstall it (since I manage the system via rpm and yum on the commandline)?

Cheers,

Niki Kovacs