mjhjmtu

I just realized that /usr/bin/poweroff and /usr/bin/shutdown are symbolic link to systemctl, but I don't know how systemctl is being run.

so is there any difference between /usr/bin/poweroff and /usr/bin/shutdown?

EDIT: when I call any of these two programs, systemctl is being executed but I don't know what command/parameter is passed to systemctl.

when I type systemctl --helpthere are two options that may come into play

• halt Shut down and halt the system


• poweroff Shut down and power-off the system

but something tells me that both poweroff and shutdown are the same in here (I'm guessing)

I'm running Archlinux

In most systems, every "shutdown" command is just a symlink to a common program/script
which changes its behaviour based on how (with which "name") is invoked.

So, poweroff does a kind of shutdown which powers off the machine (usually via ACPI APIs), too and it's equivalent to shutdown -hP, while shutdown
as a command is more generic and can do many thigs after "stopping" the OS, based on with which flags is called.

For example shutdown -r reboots the machine while shutdown -h just stops the OS (and the machine is still powered on, while not usable).