Enable hibernation

[Chow Loong Jin]

On Tue, Jan 07, 2014 at 11:05:49AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> [...]
> Right - as noted in my other mail, one of the failure scenarios here is that
> the user hibernates, closes up the laptop and stows it in the bag, not
> realizing it's failed to hibernate.

With rotational storage media, it's also fairly dangerous to store it in a bag
and walk around with it without waiting for it to finish hibernating, as the
disk is being actively written to and is more likely to sustain damage from any
jarring impacts (and yes, running after a bus counts, from personal experience).

This is one of my main pet peeves with newer Windows' hibernation/hybrid-suspend
-- it turns off the backlight and every visible LED that gives hints that the
system is still writing stuff to disk, so you need to basically stick your ear
to the laptop and listen until it's done before you stow it away.

> > > There was also the design issue:
> 
> > > - the difference between suspend and hibernate is opaque to the
> > > average user; the user should not have to guess between them.
> 
> > A lot of users understand and care about the difference.  I would go
> > so far as to say *most* of Ubuntu's users, which tend to be more savvy
> > than the average Windows user, understands the difference.
> 
> I don't think there's any evidence of this being true.  I think there's a
> very small percentage of Ubuntu power users who understand the difference
> between suspend and hibernate - using those names - well enough to take
> advantage of that difference; and then there's the much larger number of
> ordinary users, who should be protected from the bugs.
> 
> Ubuntu is meant to be suitable for use by the ordinary user.  It certainly
> shouldn't expose users to disruptive failures in prominent menu options that
> are known to be unreliable.

Sure, so make it opt-in through some obscure gsettings option that can be poked
by an expert-mode tweak tool, e.g. (unity|gnome)-tweak-tool. There are enough
users in-between who actually know the difference between suspend and hibernate.

The current UX for re-enabling hibernation is horrible -- it's disabled in two
different layers of policykit defaults, and isn't properly documented anywhere
but some askubuntu.com question. Not to mention that the fix for saucy breaks
with trusty because you now need to override org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate in
addition to just org.freedesktop.upower.hibernate.

Targetting ordinary users doesn't mean shitting on your intermediate users,
which is exactly what's happening here.

> > Even most Windows users understand the difference since they have been
> > using both under Windows for years.
> 
> I also don't believe that the existence of these options under Windows is
> evidence that Windows users understand the difference.

My mom doesn't, but my sister does. Both are accountants, and neither can
program. There are users in both camps, and we should tailor to both.

P.S. Some machines (e.g. Thinkpad E220S) have this "feature" in the BIOS that
automatically wakes the machine up when the battery level falls below a certain
percentage, presumably so that the machine can choose to enter hibernation
instead.

Under the default settings in Ubuntu on these machines, this means a
suspend-resume loop until the battery runs out, which releases far more heat
than a machine failing to hibernate while stowed in a bag.

P.P.S. This "feature" cannot be disabled in the BIOS.

P.P.P.S. This machine is Certified for Ubuntu: 
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201103-7427/

-- 
Kind regards,
Loong Jin
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