how to debug broken hibernate?

[Jaime Davila]

Eric Hanchrow wrote:
>>>>>> "Colin" == Colin Brace <cwb at lim.nl> writes:
> 
>     Colin> Hi all, I just installed Dapper on an Acer Aspire 5500Z
>     Colin> laptop.  Suspend works fine, but alas hibernate does not;
> 
> I might as well pile on -- I have Dapper on a Dell Latitude C640, and
> neither hibernate nor suspend works.
> 
> * When I try to hibernate, all that happens is: the disk churns for a
>   few seconds, the screen blanks, and then I see the "please enter
>   your password" prompt from the screen saver.
> 
> * Suspending per se seems to work -- the screen goes dark, and the
>   various lights on the laptop turn off.  But when I press the power
>   button, and the machine comes back to life, the screen is garbled,
>   and the only cure I know of is a reboot.
> 
> If it matters, the video card is
> 
>         ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 9000 (M7 LW)
> 

Could you provide the contents of /var/log/acpid? Linux should be 
writing into that file every time it detects an acpi event, like 
sleeping/hibernating requests.

I did a fresh install of dapper over the weekend on a thinkpad x40, and 
sleeping worked out of the box. That was not the case with breezy, but 
eventually I got it to work.

N.B. on sleeping. I am now using gnome as opposed to kde, which I was 
using under breezy. After updating from breezy to dapper (not a fresh 
install) I could not sleep under kde. Trying to fix this with backup 
files I hosed my installation (my fault completely for doing something 
silly). I then did a fresh install, and tried gnome, which worked. I'm 
not sure which desktop you're using.

About hibernating. I've never been able to hibernate to disk with a 
default installation, but have always been able to fix it. On my 
thinkpads (first a g40, now an x40) I have to do the following:
in file /boot/grub/menu.lst, look for the line that reads "# kopt". 
You'll use that line to pass boot parameters. In my case, that line 
reads "# kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro nosplash quiet resume=/dev/hda5" .

The comment at the beginning is not a mistake. You don't need to 
uncomment that line.

root=/dev/hda1 indicates where my OS is.

resume=/dev/hda5 indicates where my swap partition is. You can find that 
by using the disk manager (applications -> system -> administration -> 
disks).

The nosplash line will make the bootup process not give you that nice 
ubuntu logo while booting. for some reason my laptops never come out of 
hibernation unless I add that.

I'm not sure what the "quiet" option does, but it has never hurt me.

YMMV.

Hope that helps,

Jaime





-- 

******************************************************
Jaime J. Davila
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Hampshire College
School of Cognitive Science
jdavila at hampshire dot edu
http://helios.hampshire.edu/jdavila
*******************************************************