Do I need a swap *partition* to use hibernation?

[Liam Proven]

On Mon, 20 Apr 2020 at 16:50, Bo Berglund <bo.berglund at gmail.com> wrote:
>


> >> QUESTION 1:
> >> Must there be a hard drive in the notebook when updating BIOS?
> >> Since it should boot from the USB I thought not, but maybe???
> >> In that case, must the drive contain a working operating system too?
> >>
> >> QUESTION 2:
> >> How do I back up the old BIOS?
> >

> I am sorry if I am a nuisance, was not meant to. Also I now realize
> that this is probably a mail list rather than a news server or forum,
> right? It changes the approach some, I guess...

Yes, it's a mailing list.

> I am interfacing with it through GMANE using a news reader so I can
> check at will and I don't get my mailbox clobbered...

OK... For what it's worth, I am on Gmail as well, and I just set up a
filter to put all the messages from ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com into
a subfolder called Ubuntu/Users. So my mailbox remains un-clobbered.
:-)

I find this much more convenient than GMANE, which I have never got
working successfully. I get Usenet from news.eternal-september.org or
Google Groups.

> Anyway to answer:
> Yes, I have tried googling the problems before asking here and the
> results were disappointingly varied...

OK, fair enough. I was just checking.

A very common issue, even here on this list, is questions like "I
installed $program-X and it doesn't work!" or "I connected my
$hardware-Y and it doesn't work!" and the answer is "have you rebooted
your computer?" People never think to do it, and we never think to
ask, because it's so obvious. :-)

Anyway... Let me look at the rest.

> Sure, it is the Win key that exists on most computer keyboards
> nowadays...

Yes it does.

> Probably hides some Ctrl code combination behind it.

Nope. What MS re-branded as the "Windows key" in 1995 was in fact
previously called the Super key, and has been on keyboards since the
first Unix workstations in the 1970s. IBM just chose not to include it
on the PC. They also omitted the Compose key when they copied the DEC
layout, which is very useful for typing å and so on.

The Super generates a separate code, like Shift and Ctrl and Alt. You
can't make Super by a combination of the others.

Because Super wasn't in the PC design from 1981 until 1995, a lot of
older PC software does not recognise it or use it. This includes
firmware, MS-DOS and text-mode Linux. I don't think I have _ever_ seen
a BIOS, a DOS program or a Linux shell- or console- app that
recognised or used the Windows/Super key.

>From this, I guess that maybe some special HP software intercepts that
keystroke _if you are in Windows at the time_ and without Windows I am
taking an educated guess that it won't work.

I know it's a pain but you might need to temporarily install Windows
just to upgrade your firmware. :-(

An unregistered copy of Windows 10 would be fine, and an ISO is a free
download from Microsoft.com.

Comparison: I just upgraded the BIOS on my Sony Vaio P sub-netbook,
and the only way to do it was to temporarily install Windows. I tried
XP but it failed -- the machine is newer -- so I used Tiny7, an
illegal lightweight distro of Windows 7. But it worked!

> >3. If other errors are stopping the machine from doing things, then
> >fix those errors first before you proceed. This is basic common sense.
>
> I think I have fixed most problems before this step on my other laptop
> and the last item was rather to try and update the BIOS on that unit.

OK, good. I am sorry for the tone of my previous message.

If the older machine has a hard disk and it's empty, I would first try
to put FreeDOS on it.

https://www.freedos.org/download/

Many BIOS Flash tools will run from FreeDOS. It's small, free, legal,
quick to download and easy to install.

I have just occasionally had to extract the BIOS files from a Windows
update program and use the motherboard or chipset manufacturer's own
DOS flashing utility but this is a last-resort method to be used in
desperation only.

> However I was afraid to break it so I tried it on this second and
> newer laptop which also was leftover after updating us to new hardware
> and Win10.
> So I just wanted to update BIOS on this other machine.
> Could get it after some fiddling as described on the HP Service
> website.

Good!

> Oh yes I have and both machines have BIOSes dated 2010 and 2011
> whereas the newer BIOSes for both are dated 2015.

OK, so to me, it sounds worth it.

> Apart from the timestamp I don't know if they *need* to be updated,
> but the handling of the sleep and hibernation might be part of the
> updates, who knows?

In my experience, yes, it's a common factor in such problems.

> I was wrong when I said it was empty, I had in fact installed a 120 GB
> SSD into the 8560w notebook but not yet installed an operating system
> on it. Forgot that when working on the other notebook...

That's fine.

So, as per the above, first I'd try FreeDOS. If that doesn't help,
then I would temporarily install Win10, without activating it.

> So I have installed Ubuntu with the Mate desktop also on this notebook
> and set aside a swap partition for the hibernate data in the process
> of installation (had to use the non-standard install option to reach
> the partition functions).

It is annoying but necessary. I think this is another reason Ubuntu
disables hibernation by default: [1] because they use swapfiles, and
[2] because many people have outdated BIOSes and resume does not work.

Suspend or hibernation is easy. It's coming back from it that's hard! :-D

Ditto, backing up is easy. If you back up to /dev/null it will be very
quick... but getting it back is the problem. ;-)

> It turns out that unlike on the 8440w notebook this does suspend
> properly, i.e. it suspends when the lid is closed and then when I open
> the lid I can tap the power button and it resumes.

Good!

> So this is like I would expect the 8440w machine should operate...

Fair.

> The only remaining items that I think may influence this on the 8440w
> are
> - The old BIOS

Yes, agreed.

> - The dead battery (note that I am running on AC power all the time
> here). I have ordered a replacement battery but it is 1-2 weeks away.

Should not matter, I think -- so long as it is on the mains all the time.

If you suspend and remove mains power, it won't come back. "Suspend"
or "sleep" usually means to RAM. No power = nothing to resume from.

If you hibernate and remove mains power, it should make no difference
and wake up just fine.

> BIOS update on the 8560w
> ------------------------
> I tried on this by going into the BIOS and located an update function
> not available on the 8440w. This update can in fact operate from
> either a USB FAT formatted drive or any other on-line storage as long
> as it is containing the BIOS files in a subdirectory HEWLETT-PACKARD.
>
> This exists on the USB stick I made from the softpack.

OK.

That's a long filename, which in itself is tricky on FAT. It will resolve to

HEWLET~1

in DOS. But if that is the only directory whose name starts with
H-E-W-L-E-T then fine.

The problem is, if there were already a folder called, e.g.,
"hewletxyz", then the short name for "\HEWLETT-PACKARD" would become

HEWLET~2

The result is that the BIOS probably couldn't find it.

> So I have created a new partition of 100 MB in FAT32 format on which I
> have copied the HEWLETT-PACKARD subdirectory from the USB stick. I
> hope that it will find this when/if I need to update the BIOS later.

I would run it from USB myself, but I am a bit paranoid.

> But my main struggle is with the 8440w notebook which has an older
> bios without the possibility to update from within the BIOS itself...

:-(

Well, there _might_ be a DOS tool, but I don't see one.

I found this:

«
- Microsoft .NET 2.0 is required. UEFI and custom imaging
------------------------------- HP BIOS Update must be run from a FAT
or FAT32 partition with a volume name of "HP_TOOLS". This installer
will give you the option to install to the HDD or a USB drive. If you
install to the HDD and the HP_TOOLS partition is not present, the
installer will prompt you to create the HP_TOOLS partition. If you
install to a USB drive, the installer will rename the partition on the
USB drive to HP_TOOLS. If you use a custom image, you can create the
HP_TOOLS partition manually with type FAT32 and make the volume name
HP_TOOLS. Caution - The UEFI partition is not protected and can
therefore be deleted. - Backing up the computer using the Windows®
Vista® Complete PC Backup does not back up the UEFI partition. For
these reasons, HP recommends that you do not place additional data on
the UEFI partition. Because the partition is not backed up, corruption
or failure of the partition will result in loss of all data on the
partition, plus loss of UEFI functionality. You can find more
information on www.hp.com/go/techcenter/startup
»

For a temporary copy of Windows just for doing this, here are 2 options:

https://archive.org/details/TinyXPRev11

https://archive.org/details/Tiny7

I do not like to encourage the use of pirated software but these are
both end-of-life operating systems, no longer supported, and both are
smaller to download and quicker to install than Win10 -- so more
likely to work on an older PC.

Sadly TinyXP won't boot on my Vaio P -- there is something in the boot
code that doesn't work. It boot, ran and installed fine in a
VirtualBox VM, though.

> I think I am good for the time being and I will try not to bother the
> list anymore, unless there will be a problem with 20.04 when it is
> released in a week....

I apologise for my rudeness. :-(

We are all happy to help more if we can.

-- 
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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