Have Ubuntu 14.04 installed on a Toshiba Satellite S50 with Windows 7. Offnote: Was experiencing freezes with the proprietary nvidia driver so I switched to the Nouveau driver.

My ubuntu will not shut down or reboot. I try typing

sudo reboot -h -q now

among other variations as well as shutdown but I get other outcomes:

1. It closes x and freezes at the terminal with a _




2. It closes x and I get a terminal:

   
   
   

   wait-for-state stop/waiting
   
   * Stopping rsync daemon rsync
   
   saned disabled; edit /etc/default/saned
   
   * speech-dispacher disabled; edit /etc/default/speech-dispacher
   
   Stopping SpamAssassin Mail Filter Daemon: No /usr/bin/perl found running; none killed.
   
   spamd.
   
   ModemManager[828]: <info> ModemManager is shut down
   
   ModemManager[828]: <info> ModemManager (version 1.0.0) is starting...
   
   ModemManager[828]: <warn> Could not acquire the 'org.freedesktop.ModemManager1' service name
   
   ModemManager[828]: <info> ModemManager is shut down
   
   ModemManager[828]: <info> ModemManager (version 1.0.0) is starting...
   
   ModemManager[828]: <warn> Could not acquire the 'org.freedesktop.ModemManager1' service name
   
   ModemManager[828]: <info> ModemManager is shut down
   
   * Killing all remaining processes...
   
   * Will now switch to single-user mode
   
   

   
   
   

   root@laptop:~#

And I get a root prompt.

Side Notes: Using Gnome Desktop, lightdm

Why am I unable to shutdown or reboot?