[Oneiric-Topic] Simplifying system sleep functions

[Ted Gould]

On Thu, 2011-04-21 at 11:34 -0400, Tony Espy wrote:
> On 04/19/2011 08:09 PM, Jason Warner wrote:
> > Hi Everyone - Sending this on behalf of John Lea, desktop design lead.
> >
> > ==============================================
> >
> > Currently Ubuntu contains two separate sleep functions, suspend and
> > hibernate.  This choice confuses users and is a un-necessary
> > complication to 'sleeping' the computer.  The proposed change is to
> > combine both 'suspend' and 'hibernate' into a single 'sleep' function.
> >   When the user presses 'sleep', the computer should both suspend and
> > hibernate simultaneously.  The computer remains suspended for a set
> > period of time (e.g. 30min) or until the battery charge falls below a
> > set level.  At the point the suspend state is discarded, and if  the
> > user wakes the computer after this point their state is restored from
> > hibernate.  However if the user wakes the computer before the suspend
> > state is discarded, the computer is restored from 'suspend' and the
> > 'hibernate' state is discarded.
> 
> I'm not a fan of this idea.
> 
> If suspend works for the vast majority of users, why complicate it by 
> adding a timed "auto-hibernate" to the equation?  As a few folks have 
> pointed out, what if hibernate fails?  What if the BIOS doesn't properly 
> support a wake timer?
> 
> I'm pretty sure the latter criteria for triggering hibernate ( critical 
> low-battery event while suspended ) already works.  It essentially wakes 
> the system from suspend, the power manager notices the battery is 
> critically low, and invokes a hibernate.  The timed scenario would work 
> in a similar manner, except that after a timer event wakes the system, 
> the power manager would have to have added logic to trigger the hibernate.
> 
> I'm much more in favor of hiding or even removing hibernate from the UI, 
> as long as it remains an option for "critical low-battery" event for 
> those systems that properly support hibernate.

I think these are all valid cases, but I think that we should support
this feature.  I think how we should handle this is with a whitelist if
machines that we know hibernate works on.  We can provide instructions
on adding your machine to that list if you want.  Otherwise machines
that get certified by a vendor that cares about Ubuntu could ship their
machine in that whitelist.

What I think this does, and I don't believe it's really a bad thing, is
makes it so there are effectively two Ubuntu experiences.  That which
you get from installing off of the CD on random hardware, and that which
you get when you use a hardware vendor that cares about Ubuntu.  I think
that we need to make the experience the best we can for hardware vendors
that want to participate in Ubuntu -- and provide reasonable fallback
for those who don't.

		--Ted

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/attachments/20110421/a6d9edbb/attachment.pgp>