Hibernation woes

[Derek Broughton]

Paul S wrote:

> Keith Clark said the following on 05/04/2008 11:12 PM:
>> I just tried to put my desktop computer into hibernation by pressing the
>> half moon key as I would have done in XP.  All seemed well, as the
>> computer shut itself down in a matter of 10-15 seconds.
> 
> It takes about 40 sec's here .. the time is required to copy all the
> information on open programs onto a file in your swap.

Probably about the same for me - I can't say I've timed the hibernate part. 
The hibernate time should be fairly predictably based onthe amount of real
memory you have.

> It takes about the same time as a reboot.  When it comes up the
> (k)ubuntu splash screen progress bar freezes and disk activity is
> constant because it's reading and starting all the app's from the file
> in swap.

It's not so much that the splash screen "freezes" as its simply never
updated :-)  It's also not "starting" the apps in swap (it just swaps them
into real memory as they're needed) - they've never stopped.
>> 
>> What was going on here?  Does hibernation work?  I thought it would be a
>> faster way compared to the shut down and reboot option.
> 
> I don't think it's faster, 

It would depend how much stuff you have running when you hibernate, and
whether it all gets started at boot time.  I assure you that with my
development system running 4 or 5 web servers, smtp & imap, 1 or 2 database
servers, an ssh server and who knows what else, the minute it takes to
resume from hibernate is about 20% of what a fresh boot takes (and some of
those servers won't have been started by then, anyway).
-- 
derek