...making Linux just a little more fun!
Kapil Hari Paranjape [kapil at imsc.res.in]
Sun, 10 Sep 2006 14:53:20 +0530
On Fri, 08 Sep 2006, Benjamin A. Okopnik wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 06, 2006 at 07:53:12PM -0500, John Karns wrote: > > > [1]* works wonderfully on this aging Dell I8100, best I've ever had a > > laptop run under Linux - at the end of the day I just suspend to RAM - > > haven't done a shutdown or reboot now in 14 days! Probably mostly thanks > > to the improvements in the kernel suspend code, but they seem to have the > > ACPI scripting functioning very well too. Hibernate hasn't proven to be > > quite as smooth though. > > Mine just don't work, period. Bleagh. :((( To the best of my ability to > figure it out, the ACPI on this Acer 2012 is so horrendously broken > that it's not even worth trying to fix (although I'd downloaded Intel's > ACPI compiler/decompiler, dutifully fixed all the errors, and shoved it > all back in, it didn't seem to make any difference.) Well, this laptop > is getting toward the end of its useful life... we'll see how the next > one goes.
Continuing my experiments with suspend/hibernate etc...
For 2.6.17-rc1 upwards you should try out "uswsusp" which tries to sort out problems with prior suspend(s).
My current situation is quite happy vis-a-vis both suspend to disk suspend to ram. I use the "stock" Debian linux-image-2.6.17-2-686 (version 2.6.17-8) and initramfs-tools (version 0.77b) with aforementioned uswsusp (0.2-3).
Everything "works" out of the box except for a minor hiccough with suspend-to-ram which required some hacking as follows.
a. Save current device config to disk cat /proc/bus/pci/00/02.0 > /var/lib/acpi/vid_0 cat /proc/bus/pci/00/02.1 > /var/lib/acpi/vid_1 b. Suspend-to-ram echo -n mem > /sys/power/state c. Restore device state on resume cat > /proc/bus/pci/00/02.0 < /var/lib/acpi/vid_0 cat > /proc/bus/pci/00/02.1 < /var/lib/acpi/vid_1The developers of suspend are undecided on whether they should wait for the kernel to fix this or just make the change to s2ram since the problem seems to be for specific hardware combinations like the thinkpad R51 with intel graphics (or perhaps only for that combination!).
I should perhaps also mention that suspend worked fine on my laptop with Ubuntu Dapper which I tested out.
Generally, I have found that "suspend-to-disk" works out-of-the-box with all laptops that I have come across; "suspend-to-ram" seems more tricky. Given my experience, I would say that Ben is singularly unlucky :-(
Regards,
Kapil. --
Benjamin A. Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:37:23 -0400
On Sun, Sep 10, 2006 at 02:53:20PM +0530, Kapil Hari Paranjape wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Sep 2006, Benjamin A. Okopnik wrote: > > > > To the best of my ability to > > figure it out, the ACPI on this Acer 2012 is so horrendously broken > > that it's not even worth trying to fix (although I'd downloaded Intel's > > ACPI compiler/decompiler, dutifully fixed all the errors, and shoved it > > all back in, it didn't seem to make any difference.) Well, this laptop > > is getting toward the end of its useful life... we'll see how the next > > one goes. > > Continuing my experiments with suspend/hibernate etc... > > For 2.6.17-rc1 upwards you should try out "uswsusp" which tries to > sort out problems with prior suspend(s).
I've kept this email in my inbox as a motivator, and finally got around to playing with a new kernel. It seems that upgrading to 2.6.17.13 does make a difference, after many, many ugrades that haven't: I've just managed a suspend-to-disk not only from the console but from X - something I'd never managed before. Mind you, I haven't tested it thoroughly yet and don't know how well it will work under various conditions, but being able to do it at all is a BIG plus.
As to suspending it with 'mem'... eh, I'm afraid it's not soup yet. I've tried an exhaustive combination set with the 's2ram' options and reported the tabulated results to the fellow at SuSE who is developing it, but although the results are better than before (I can at least get disk activity with 'ls -lR' after resuming), none of the combinations make the display light up again. :( Yes, even when starting with 'init=/bin/bash'. Maybe soon.
> My current situation is quite happy vis-a-vis both suspend to disk > suspend to ram. I use the "stock" Debian linux-image-2.6.17-2-686 > (version 2.6.17-8) and initramfs-tools (version 0.77b) with > aforementioned uswsusp (0.2-3). > > Everything "works" out of the box except for a minor hiccough with > suspend-to-ram which required some hacking as follows. > > a. Save current device config to disk > cat /proc/bus/pci/00/02.0 > /var/lib/acpi/vid_0 > cat /proc/bus/pci/00/02.1 > /var/lib/acpi/vid_1 > b. Suspend-to-ram > echo -n mem > /sys/power/state > c. Restore device state on resume > cat > /proc/bus/pci/00/02.0 < /var/lib/acpi/vid_0 > cat > /proc/bus/pci/00/02.1 < /var/lib/acpi/vid_1
I'll keep hold of this for future reference; I may need it once they get a few more bugs worked out.
> Generally, I have found that "suspend-to-disk" works out-of-the-box > with all laptops that I have come across; "suspend-to-ram" seems more > tricky. Given my experience, I would say that Ben is singularly unlucky :-(
Given the general reports on how it works for many others, I agree. Between that and the nearly-random sound system failure to initialize on startup (which can't be fixed without removing the battery and disconnecting, then reconnecting power), the Acer 2010/2012 is not something I'd recommend to anyone wanting to set up Linux on a laptop.
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
John Karns [johnkarns at gmail.com]
Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:18:09 -0500 (COT)
On Fri, 8 Sep 2006, Benjamin A. Okopnik wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 06, 2006 at 07:53:12PM -0500, John Karns wrote: >> [1]* works wonderfully on this aging Dell I8100, best I've ever had a >> laptop run under Linux - at the end of the day I just suspend to RAM - >> haven't done a shutdown or reboot now in 14 days! Probably mostly thanks >> to the improvements in the kernel suspend code, but they seem to have the >> ACPI scripting functioning very well too. Hibernate hasn't proven to be >> quite as smooth though. > > Mine just don't work, period. Bleagh. :((( To the best of my ability to > figure it out, the ACPI on this Acer 2012 is so horrendously broken > that it's not even worth trying to fix (although I'd downloaded Intel's > ACPI compiler/decompiler, dutifully fixed all the errors, and shoved it > all back in, it didn't seem to make any difference.) Well, this laptop > is getting toward the end of its useful life... we'll see how the next > one goes.
Unfortunately an all too common problem on laptops in general I'm afraid. For a very long time, the boot log would show an "ACPI broken implementation" error on this machine. Eventually the kernel people caught up with the (IMO intentionally) quirky BIOS ACPI code on these particular models. The broken / buggy BIOS on the Inspirons used to be widely talked about; maybe it's different with current models, but somehow I doubt it.
Aside from that, the nvidia video BIOS seems to deviate from the DPMS standard, causing the machine to ignore commands to shut off the LCD backlight. I hacked a work around implementing a call to the vbetool code to do it, so that the light won't stay on indefinitely after the screen blanker kicks in.
The I8000 I was using before it had some weird BIOS / hardware bugs that
would cause the text on the screen to flash at various frequencies below
10 Hz or so, triggered every once in a while by various combinations in
the ordering of text attributes and / or characters being displayed at the
time, A warranty service call tech replaced the LCD, the video card (not
nvidia) and finally the mobo, which fixed the problem, but left it as a
latitude. I'm kinda curious what would happen if I flash it with an
Inspiron BIOS. 
-- John Karns