Coming from Windows, I know that on Windows there is a “safe shutdown” for Windows. This means that any applications that are opened are safely closed before the PC shutsdown.
Unfortunately on Linux it seems to abruptly shutdown if you shutdown the PC.
Is there some safe shutdown thing I could install or something?
I would probably use the shutdown icon in the menu or type into terminal. It takes like .3 seconds especially since I almost always have a terminal open
I wonder if I’m doing it wrong. I shut down my computer with the command poweroff and reboot (I have them bound to a key combo). Watchdog occasionally hangs waiting for some process or the other, but other than that it’s pretty fast (1-2s). I don’t get asked about open windows.
Perhaps OP is not used to how quickly Linux can properly shutdown open apps without problems? 1-2 seconds is usually enough on my system to shut down. As posted above I usually type reboot to effect a shutdown painlessly (and only if something updated that would be a good idea to reboot for!)
What you should never do is cut the power to your PC or hard reset using the button on the computer’s case, as that may cause filesystem corruption. But any other normal means of shutting down is safe, including the poweroff command (which is just a symlink to systemctl) or using the GUI button (which is a bit gentler on some DE’s as it logs you out of your GUI session and then runs the systemctl command).