Why doesn't Turn Off The Computer turn off the computer?

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Chris Hill wrote:

> On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Yance Kowara wrote:
>
>> In Linux, shutdown -h now will power off the machine.
>
>
> *That* makes no sense to me, and I would find it to be unexpected 
> behavior... but I guess it's a matter of what you're used to.

Where FreeBSD aims for a Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA) my 
experience of Linux is that they have no such principle, and in some 
cases (when I'm having a bad day :-)) even a Principle of Greatest 
Astonishment.

Shutdown -h has halted machines since forever (or course, in them days 
you *couldn't* power the machine off).

Enough rambling,

--Alex