I often use minicom (currently version 2.1-r2) with a USB-Serial adaptor. If I forget to exit minicom before shutting down my system the shutdown process can take very long (the record is over an hour, against a few seconds normal shutdown time). emerge --info: Portage 2.0.54 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.80GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.6.14 dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i386-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env /usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X acl acpi acpi4linux alsa apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth bzip2 cdr crypt cups curl directfb divx4linux doc dri dvd eds emboss encode esd exif expat fam ffmpeg foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm gif glut gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal idn imlib ipv6 java jpeg junit kde lcms ldap libg++ libwww mad madwifi mikmod mmx mng moznocompose mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nptl offensive ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl png ppds python qt quicktime readline real rtc samba sdl slang spell sse sse2 ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff transcode truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb vchroot vorbis win32codecs xine xml xml2 xosd xv xvid zlib video_cards_ati userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Shutdown sequence is vastly improved in baselayout-2.0.0_alpha4 now we use the killall5 command again. If you still have this issue, please re-open.