How to set power button to shutdown instead of suspend?

Question

I am using GNOME 3.18.1 on Arch Linux 4.2.5-1-ARCH x86_64 on a Dell E6530 laptop. Since I installed this OS years ago, the power button on my laptop has always led my OS to completely power down.

However, in the last few weeks this behaviour has changed, so that pressing the power button now puts my laptop into energy savings mode. I did not change my power settings. I always keep my system up to date using pacman -Syyu, however, so I suspect that an update changed this functionality.

In the power settings there is no option for this.

How can I restore the initial behaviour, so that pressing that button powers the system off?

Answer 1

That's caused by the latest gnome-settings-daemon updates...
There is no such option in power settings because it was removed by the GNOME devs (the shutdown/power off action is considered "too destructive").
Bottom line: you can no longer power off your laptop by pressing the power off button.

---

You could however add a new dconf/gsettings option (i.e.shutdown) to the settings daemon power plugin if you're willing to patch and rebuild gnome-settings-daemon:

--- gnome-settings-daemon-3.18.2/data/gsd-enums.h   2015-11-10 09:07:12.000000000 -0500
+++ gnome-settings-daemon-3.18.2/data/gsd-enums.h   2015-11-11 18:43:43.240794875 -0500
@@ -114,7 +114,8 @@
 {
   GSD_POWER_BUTTON_ACTION_NOTHING,
   GSD_POWER_BUTTON_ACTION_SUSPEND,
-  GSD_POWER_BUTTON_ACTION_HIBERNATE
+  GSD_POWER_BUTTON_ACTION_HIBERNATE,
+  GSD_POWER_BUTTON_ACTION_SHUTDOWN
 } GsdPowerButtonActionType;

 typedef enum
--- gnome-settings-daemon-3.18.2/plugins/media-keys/gsd-media-keys-manager.c    2015-11-10 09:07:12.000000000 -0500
+++ gnome-settings-daemon-3.18.2/plugins/media-keys/gsd-media-keys-manager.c    2015-11-11 18:47:52.388602012 -0500
@@ -1849,6 +1849,9 @@

         action_type = g_settings_get_enum (manager->priv->power_settings, "power-button-action");
         switch (action_type) {
+        case GSD_POWER_BUTTON_ACTION_SHUTDOWN:
+                do_config_power_action (manager, GSD_POWER_ACTION_SHUTDOWN, in_lock_screen);
+                break;
         case GSD_POWER_BUTTON_ACTION_SUSPEND:
                 do_config_power_action (manager, GSD_POWER_ACTION_SUSPEND, in_lock_screen);
                 break;

Once you install the patched version, a new shutdown option will be available in dconf-editor under org > gnome > settings-daemon > plugins > power > power-button-action:

so select that to shutdown via power button or, if you prefer CLI, run in terminal:

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power power-button-action shutdown

Sure, for the above to work you also need the right settings in /etc/systemd/logind.conf:

HandlePowerKey=poweroff
PowerKeyIgnoreInhibited=yes

---

Keep in mind that pressing the power button will shutdown your system without any warning.

Answer 2

In Ubuntu 18.04 or any similar Linux variants with acpi (if not you can probably install), make a file called /etc/acpi/events/power with

sudo nano /etc/acpi/events/power

and put

event=button/power
action=/sbin/poweroff

inside the file, close it, then

sudo service acpid restart

This is probably the simplest solution that definitely works.

Answer 3

As @don_crissti explained, the situation is silly because it really isn't possible to just shutdown without confirmation using the normal settings.

However, there's a workaround: if the chassis type of the machine is set to "vm" (virtual machine), the old immediate shutdown behavior will take over any settings. Simply enter as root:

hostnamectl set-chassis vm

and reboot once. I don't know of any side effects of this settings.

Answer 4

As an alternative, you can open up the keyboard settings window and assign a custom keyboard shortcut to the command gnome-session-quit --power-off, which will bring up the shutdown menu. I have it set to trigger by Super+q.

Answer 5

As a first step, you should make sure that Settings | Power (assuming Gnome v3) "Suspend & Power Off" / "Automatic Suspend" is set to off. Basically, disable GNOME power setting features and just let the system take over.

Answer 6

The custom keyboard shortcut works, I set it to gnome-session-quit --power-off --force by pressing only the power button, which is all that I wanted.

Answer 7

I found another option to accomplish this on Debian Stretch. I installed the package acpi-support-base and edited the file /etc/acpi/powerbtn-acpi-support.sh adding the following lines following the header comment and before any code.

## Bypass logic to force shutdown on power button
/sbin/shutdown -h -P now "Power button pressed"
exit 0

This is a bit of a blunt instrument but works for me on a desktop and should work on a laptop. It also bypasses the Gnome3 settings but is easier than patching Gnome and recompiling.

According to the Arch Wiki page on acpid this can probably be implemented by modifying /etc/acpi/handler.sh on Arch.

Answer 8

I worked around this problem on a server of mine by monitoring the log output of systemd-logind basically refining the solutions presented in other answers.

This workaround requires two files. The script that triggers the actual shutdown event

$ cat /usr/local/bin/shutdown_button_monitor.sh
#!/bin/sh

# ansible managed

# systemd-logind prints a line of the form 
# Dez 21 11:12:10 box03.yeepa.de systemd-logind[748]: Power key pressed.
# on key press, but doesn't handle the button because gnome3 blocks systemd from doing so.
# See `systemd-inhibit` for that.

# first sleep a minute so we have chance to disable this scritp if it runs amok
sleep 1m

# so we workaround gnome a bit here.
journalctl -u systemd-logind --follow --lines=0 | \
while read line ; do
    if echo "$line" | grep --quiet 'Power key pressed'
    then
        systemctl poweroff
    fi
done

and the service file that starts / restarts it

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/shutdown_button_monitor.service
# ansible managed

[Unit]
Description=Power off the machine if the power button is pressed
# Workaround for gnomes block of the shutdown button
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/242129/gnome-3-how-to-set-power-button-to-shutdown-instead-of-suspend#242452
# Monitor these blocks yourself with `systemd-inhibit`

[Service]
User=root
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/shutdown_button_monitor.sh
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Answer 9

Some while ago I created this handy script: https://github.com/stackcoder/doublepress

It can prevent accidental shutdowns by requiring double pressing the power button. It also allows switching between standby and poweroff, or triggers your custom action.