[Techtalk] Linux on a laptop problem

[H. Peter Anvin]

coldfire wrote:
>>As I read it, a partition other than swap, specifically for hibernation.
>>But I might be wrong.
> 
> 
> yeah, specifically, the "suspend to disk" feature requires a seperate
> partition in order to save all data in the ram and video ram to the hard
> disk.  this mode uses no battery power whatsoever when suspended.  if the
> partition doesn't exist, it won't suspend. ;)
> 
> the other is the "suspend to memory" in which it powers down things like
> the hard drive, lcd, etc. and only uses what battery power it needs to
> sustain what's currently in the ram, etc.
> 

What's worse, on a lot of systems the firmware (BIOS) can't do Suspend 
to Disk (hibernate) anymore, and the OS has to do it "manually."  This 
is actually pretty messy for the OS to do; there are patches for Linux 
to do this but they aren't integrated yet.

That being said, it's probably the saner option in the long run.  It's 
just an awful lot of work.

	-hpa