I am a complete newby to the Linux world. I have everything working in MDK9 the way I want except for one thing.

When I shutdown the computer, it gets to a point where it says "Stopping DM" and just sits there. If i reboot the system, then tell it to shutdown from the login screen, it will shutdown but when it says "Stopping DM" it reports FAILED.

Any help would be great.

Well I bet that your Display Manager isn't dyin properly. erm...A little more info would be nice...are you using xdm, kdm, gdm???

Does your computer shut down after DM-shutdown fails, or does it hang there? Behavior?

If it was me, I would not boot into X automatically, but to the command line instead. It's just good practice. I can get you started if you want. It means booting to the command line, and writing a little file so that your window manager starts up when you type "startx". This way you don't need a DM. Or you could try to switch DM's...there usually are two or three available.

Just use Xtart from console (init 3). It's like a dm for console.
urpmi Xtart

Choose not to start X at boot in mcc>Boot>Boot Config and reboot.
At init 3 (console) after login, type
Xtart
to get a list of wm's.