Logging In and Shutting Down

After rebooting your PC, you will be able to log in to a Linux session. If you did not choose to use X11 software during the installation, you will log in at a text-based login prompt. If you configured X and enabled a graphical login, the screen will clear after your system boots, and you will be presented with a graphical login screen, as shown previously in Figure 3.19.

To log in at the text-based prompt, type your username and press Enter. You will then be prompted for your password. After you press Enter, you will be at the Linux command line. If you use a graphical login, you can use the shutdown or reboot menus in the screen's dialog to shut down or reboot your system. To immediately shut down your system from the command line of a text-based session, use the su command and its -c option to run the halt command, like this:

 $ su - c halt 

You can also use the reboot command to restart your computer like this:

 $ su -c reboot 

For new users, installing Fedora is just the beginning of a new and highly rewarding journey on the path to learning Linux. See Chapter 5 for additional information about using Linux commands. For Fedora system administrators, the task ahead is to fine-tune the installation and to customize the server or user environment.

Related Fedora and Linux Commands

You might use the following commands while installing Fedora:

dd Convert and copy data

fdisk The Linux disk partitioning utility

grub The GNU boot loader for Linux and other operating systems

LOADLIN A Linux boot loader for DOS

mkbootdisk Red Hat's Linux boot disk creation utility

RAWRITE A disk image utility for DOS