Array 5 liveCD - report (X11, ide issues; suspend success)

[Matthew Garrett]

On Sun, 2005-02-20 at 14:53 -0800, Zack Weinberg wrote:

> The first problem I was hoping to solve, is that since upgrading to
> kernel 2.6 and ACPI (which has otherwise been quite nice, e.g. battery
> life is improved) I have not been able to use suspend-to-RAM.  This
> used to work perfectly with 2.4 and APM.  I'm pleased to report that
> following the directions at http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/HoaryPM
> also works perfectly, from a text console or from an X session.  (A
> minor improvement would be, from an X session, to present the
> xscreensaver unlock dialogue immediately on resume - I had to guess
> that the reason I was seeing a black screen was because the
> screensaver was active.)

Excellent. I'll see what can be done about the screensaver.

> Unfortunately, the other major problem I have is not addressed by
> Ubuntu.  I have a docking station for this laptop.  Under Windows, one
> may suspend to RAM, dock the laptop, and resume, and the display
> automagically switches to the docking station's monitor.  This does
> not happen under Linux.  This is a kernel-level problem: it doesn't
> work even in a text console.  I have played with related BIOS settings
> with no success.  The best I can do is, if the computer is initially
> booted while in the docking station, then it will display to the
> docking station's monitor - but if suspended, removed, and resumed, it
> won't display to its LCD panel!

Linux has no support for reenumerating ACPI devices after hotplug/unplug
at the moment. This causes various issues. I'm afraid there's not a lot
we can do about this without some major kernel hacking - I'll try to
prod the upstream people into looking at it.

> While I'm complaining about X issues, this annoyance isn't fixed in
> Ubuntu either: If I am in an X session, and I close the lid, when I
> reopen it the backlight does not turn back on.  I must press Fn+F8
> (the magic direct-to-BIOS sequence to switch between the LCD panel and
> the external VGA connector).  I then get a garbled screen.  Switching
> to a text console and back corrects the display.  David Dawes gave me
> to understand this was fixed in the XFree86 4.4 "nv" driver, so I was
> really hoping it would be fixed in Xorg whosis as well...

Does this happen if you edit /etc/acpi/lid.sh and disable the chvts?

>  - Sound does not work, except that mysteriously it starts working
>    after a suspend/resume cycle.  (AC'97 sound chip, IIRC.)  In Debian
>    it doesn't work at all.

Weird. We don't touch the sound hardware in the suspend/resume code, so
it must be the kernel's suspend support doing something to the chip.
Sounds like a driver bug - can you file a bug against it?

> Overall I'm pleased; I'm probably going to install Ubuntu just for the
> working suspend-to-RAM.

Rock. I'm glad that's working nicely for you - we've put a lot of work
into suspend support.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org