Traditionally, Unix users and the system itself have been able to communicate by writing messages directly to a terminal. Syslog, wall (and hence shutdown), write, and talk all do this. Unfortunately, this is a bit iffy under X11 because you may well not have any terminals open, or you may have a lot of other things going on and not notice the message until it is too late. Perhaps some part of Gnome (the panel, maybe?) should quietly open a tty to listen for such messages, which could then be passed to the user somehow. If a dialogue box seems too obtrusive, perhaps an sound could play and an icon could appear in the notification area. -- Peter Oliver
