biking with a sleeping laptop?

[Matt Palmer]

On Sun, May 07, 2006 at 07:48:33PM -0400, Neil McLeod wrote:
> I'm running Ubuntu on an IBM Thinkpad T42. Is it safe to suspend the
> computer and then go biking with the laptop in my backpack, or can this
> cause damage?

Well, if you fall off it might cause some problems.  <grin>  It's not a
really increased risk beyond riding around with the laptop turned off
completely.

In a laptop, the only really sensitive component tends to be the HDD.  When
that's not spinning, however, it's not excessively prone to damage from
bumps.  The only other potential problems I can think of are the laptop
waking up accidentally, or the battery being bumped out of it's housing a
bit (causing the suspend-to-RAM to die a horrible death).  The former is
likely to cause wailing and gnashing of teeth, while the latter will just
kill your session.  The solution to both is to use suspend-to-disk instead.

To add a further data point on top of Matt Price's experience, I got wiped
off my motorbike with a suspended-to-RAM Toshiba Tecra 8100 (back before I
got the lovely T43 I have now), and it woke up fine.  (Pics -- of the bike,
not the laptop -- and the full story are at
http://www.hezmatt.org/bikewreck/ for the terminally curious).

- Matt

-- 
"Riding through the tunnel at 200 is something you should approach in the
same way you'd bonk your neighbours wife.  A once in a while thing.  Do it
often and you'll get caught."
		-- Kel, aus.moto