1.3 Leaving Your System

When you have finished using the computer, there are several options how to leave your system: some of them will leave the system running, others will shutdown the computer. If your system provides power management, you can also choose to suspend your computer—in this state, it will consume considerably less power that usual but it will start much faster than after a complete shutdown and boot process.

You can access all the options to leave your session or your system from the main menu. Click the main menu icon on the left and switch to the Leave tab. Select one of the following options:

Logout

Ends your current session and leaves your system running. If not configured otherwise in the KDE 4 Personal Settings (see Adjusting the Session Handling, the session manager will restore the currently open windows by default next time you log in to KDE. Find more information about the session manager and configuration options at Adjusting the Session Handling.

Lock

Prevents unauthorized access by others by locking your screen and starting a screen saver. Access to the session can only be regained with a password. To unlock, enter your normal login password. For information about configuring your screen saver, see Configuring the Screen Saver.

Switch User

Starts a second session with a graphical user interface on your machine. Your current session remains active while you are taken to the login screen where you can log in as a different user. You can access the first session again by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7. To access a new session, press F8 instead of F7. Additional sessions can be accessed by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F9 to F12.

If more than one desktop environment is installed on your system, you can also choose to switch to another desktop for the new session as described in Section 1.4, Switching Desktops.

Suspend to RAM

This menu item is only available if your computer provides power management functionality. Pauses your computer without logging you out. All your data and the session data is saved to disk before the system is laid to rest. It is thus protected against data loss should you loose power in the meantime. Waking the system up again is much faster than booting it from scratch.

Suspend to Disk

This menu item is only available if your computer provides power management functionality. Pauses your computer without logging you out. All your data and the session data is saved to RAM. Bringing the system up again is faster than restoring a session from disk.

Shutdown Computer

Logs you out and turns your computer off.

Restart Computer

Initiates the shutdown process and reboots your computer. Instead of selecting the desired boot option in the boot manager, you can also select the desired option directly—just click one of the option below Restart Computer.

To access most of the options for leaving, you can also use the keyboard shortcut defined in the Personal Settings. Usually, this is Ctrl+Alt+L.

If you have already logged out, you can still access shutdown and restart option from the login screen by clicking System and selecting the respective menu items.