I guess http://www.linux.com/articles/54610 doesn't work?

I so look forward to read comments on this one :)

The new 2.6.23 kernel was released almost two weeks prior to Gutsy's release. The dev team refused to replace the faulty 2.6.22 kernel that was in. I'm sorry that you had to go back.

2.6.24, or 2.6.25 if we're lucky, will be included in Ubuntu 8.04. Please attempt to return then... both you and I will be trying.

I had that exact problem. Everything worked on my ubuntu 7.04 dell laptop, but when I upgraded to 7.10 the problems you spoke of appeared. It took me a while to find this solution which worked perfectly.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3675936#post3675936
which involved rolling back the 'intel' driver in xorg.conf back to the older 'i810' driver. If you still have time it is easy to do.

Dan,

I wish it were that simple. For starters, I'm using a completely different laptop - XPS M1710 - with a different video card - nVidia GeForce Go 7900GS. Also, my symptoms are not isolated to the lid function. I also get the black screen if/when I select Suspend from the menu or hit Fn-Esc to force suspend via the BIOS. Basically, it's broken across the board.

Also, note, that I tried a downgrade from Gutsy x64 to the i386 version. When symptoms actually got *worse* I finally gave up. I can put up with a lot from an OS - UI defects, quirky drivers, even the occasional lockup. However, suspend/resume is such an integral part of using a laptop that this bug is a true show stopper for me.

I'm actually quite disappointed. I put a lot of time into this project and to have it fail so close to the finish line - and from the kind of blatant QA oversight that would get you fired at Microsoft - is a real bummer.

Oh well...maybe Hardy will be the one... :-(

RCK

We do obviously have quite a large number of laptops in our testing centre, and perform regular testing throughout the development cycle on this hardware.

Unfortunately our expertise is limited to those vendors that are willing to work with us to certify their hardware. This doesn't just mean the marque on the lid, but necessarily includes the manufacturers of most of the major components of the machine.

If you are interested, please e-mail me so that we can at least get some detailed information about your problem machines so that we at least know what doesn't work -- it may be that there's some component there that we don't test, or are unable to.

(I'm going to randomly guess, with only the information in your articles, that the problem is because both laptops have nVidia graphics cards. Unfortunately only Intel and ATI currently provide the necessary resources to Linux developers to support their hardware; nVidia prefer to maintain their drivers themselves. The fact that your failure mode is a black screen supports the notion that it is their closed-source driver failing to resume, since you clearly have no video.)

The rigours of a time-based release cycle mean that sometimes we have to accept regressions outside of our supported/certified harware set to ensure that the release can be made on time. To counter this, we have regular "Long Term Support" releases that have these kinds of problems more specifically targeted -- although again, we can still only target issues that we are able to fix; if a hardware vendor will not work with us, then there is little that we can do.

I must admit, I was impressed by this little foray of yours, Randall.

I'll come out and say it: I was expecting Ubuntu to receive a serious bashing as you attempted this, and I think some of your other readers have been worried about the same thing, but instead I was pleasantly surprised to find a real user's account of running Ubuntu.

Yes, I use it as a home OS. No, I don't have it on any notebooks currently. As such, the issues with suspend/resume are less of a showstopper here.

I do sympathise with what I've come to see as the anguish of someone who has seen how close their experience came to being great.

I certainly feel that Linux as a whole needs to improve in certain key areas before it's ready for the masses, those being wireless networking, ACPI, screen setup and offline help. It's getting there, and the developments in the latest release of Ubuntu are certainly a big step in the right direction (printing used to be on my list, for example), but it seems that the final few niggles are still there.

I hope you'll be back for another try at some point.

While I was googling how to fix my suspend issues on my m1330 I came across your page. I've fixed my issues by following the instructions on;

http://en.opensuse.org/NVidia_Suspend_HOWTO

Basicly, the nvidia driver is causing havoc. Too bad you gave up so fast dude :)

AHEM! Excuse me Mr. Kennedy,

Your first article(November 05, 2007: Ubuntu: Taking the Plunge) and your current article(November 10, 2007: The Ubuntu Plunge - Day 5: Show Stopper!) seem to indicate that your 30-day promise was nothing more than dangling carrots(quoted from your first article: I will live in Ubuntu for the next 30 days (longer if I end up liking my new digs).) I personally expect you to continue with the remainder of time you promised when the next release comes out.

You can post your IUO wherever you see fit as long as it's readily accesible to the Linux/Ubuntu community.

Thanks for your time.

Zexy,

When I set out on this journey I fully expected to last all 30 days. In fact, towards the end of week 1 I was expecting to announce a permanent move to Ubuntu. However, after losing several hours worth of work to the ACPI bug - and after trying in earnest to find a workaround - I had to abandon my quest.

As I mentioned in my blog, I can handle a lot of things: buggy drivers, crashing applications, even the occasional lockup.

However, I *rely* on suspend/resume to funtion properly or I can't work. And if I can't work, I can't feed my family. This isn't a joke. This isn't a prank. This is business.

At the end of the day you have to make decisions based on how things work in the real world, and frankly, Ubuntu was beginning to undermine my ability to survive at a very basic level. I'm genuinely sad to see it go, however, go it must...

RCK

Randall,

Sorry that you gave up on it so quickly. I was hoping to see you go through the whole 30 day venture and permanently make the switch. It almost seems like an excuse to abandon ship. However, I do respect that ACPI is important to you -- it's important to me too (my machine never actually gets turned off; always suspend).

I think that you could have a) gone back to a dual-boot until you resolved this, and b) shared your brick wall with this community to get some guidance on how to overcome this and other limitations.

Some of us were cheering you on and hoping that you could make it the full 30 days and hopefully ever after.

You know... it's not too late! You can continue with day 6. =-)

x_hobbes

How on earth have you become so dependant upon Suspend/Resume? Why not power off, like regular human beings?

Yeah, I get that it's faster. But the time differential isn't that great, unless you are in and out like some demented meerkat. And if that's the case maybe you should be working on a PDA-type device with instant-on. Of course there will be functional compromises... that's just life.

Every try Sleep? How about Hibernate?

I find two things a shame in this matter: 1. The broken ACPI, 2. The fact that you found out that this is a general problem and spent hours on fixing the issue and then GAVE UP THE SAME DAY WITHOUT ASKING FOR HELP FIRST! (where is the link to your thread in Ubuntu Forums in your article?)

You are thus ignoring one of the most favored part of Ubuntu - it's community!

Maybe you can write a 20min summary of your findings (which in turn will help others in themselved) on Ubuntu Forums, then blog about your _break_ with Ubuntu (as opposed to complete desertation), until the issue is resolved (which it most likely will be!)

Welcome back whenever you are ready to once again embrace Ubuntu!

Cheers,
/Fredrik

I have the same problem on a HP with a newish ATI-card. Would like to have it sorted out but I'll stick with it. I'm not going back. I'm not even sure where "back" is; it's been too long. Hope you retry with 8.04. Good luck.

I have to agree. I'm under the very same issues under 7.10, among other kernel-related regressions on my tablet pc. I've reported my problems on launchpad, hoping someone will look at it sometime!

It's very critical no to be able to suspend on a tablet pc ...

But I like FOSS so much that I just stopped to suspend/hibernate, while they make way for Hardy - where hopefully, these issues will be fixed.

I have to agree. I'm under the very same issues under 7.10, among other kernel-related regressions on my tablet pc. I've reported my problems on launchpad, hoping someone will look at it sometime!

It's very critical no to be able to suspend on a tablet pc ...

But I like FOSS so much that I just stopped to suspend/hibernate, while they make way for Hardy - where hopefully, these issues will be fixed.

I've got the same laptop and videocard (Dell m1710), and have been attempting to get this working too. I actually had it work once, but after that it didn't... the funny part is I didn't even touch anything after it worked the first time. Pretty strange.

I've got a dual boot of Gutsy and Vista, and niether one of them supports suspend very good. Gutsy is more broken of course, but in Vista my resolution will randomly change back down to 1024x768, cramming all my desktop icons into that space and ruining any order they may have had at all. I have yet to find a fix for this, as it's very intermittent, and whenever it happens I'm forced to manually run a batch script using this program "Qres" to set my resolution back to normal.

I've almost given up on suspend in either OS, but I have faith that Ubuntu will probably get theirs fixed (or I'll find a manual fix) before Microsoft will get around to it.

Jim,

Actually, I've had pretty good luck with Vista and suspend/resume. In fact, outside of a flaky USB wireless mouse driver (pointer acceleration gets too aggressive after a resume, requiring me to unplug/re-plug the dongle), I haven't had a suspend/resume-related problem since the late betas. The key is to use vendor supplied drivers for the GeForce Go 7900GS adapter. I'd recommend LaptopVideo2Go.com, but they're in the middle of moving to a new server, so...

When they do come back up, check them out. Large selection of mobile-enabled drivers that should help you get better results suspending/resuming.

RCK

Sorry to hear about your problem. Have been running 6.06 for about a year now on a Toshiba Satellite. Close and open the case and it prompts you to log in again. Reasonable behavior in my estimation. Desktop and all applications are preserved.

Makes me hesitate to update my OS. On the other hand, my XP partition has started blacking out when I open an application, or just when it feels like it. Nothing on the screen, just black. Only a hard power down restores it.

Virus scan, spyware scan shows nothing. Don't know if there is some kind of rootkit problem I in-advertently picked up, though I try to avoid any questionable sites from the XP side.

Dude - get a Mac. My MacBook wakes up from sleep mode faster than my old Windows machine came out of the screen saver. It's almost unbelievable.

I'm a busy person, I don't have time to fool with shell scripts and config files. Mac is the best alternative to Vista. All the power of Unix, supported by a real company. What's not to love?

How hard is it to download a ISO, burn it, and boot from it. After that you click 'install' and that's it.

Maybe your one of those persons who better not have a PC.

One of the things Linux has in common with Vista is that it's a really, really good idea to do some online research on hardware compatibility BEFORE you commit to installing.

BTW, there's a non-standard minimalist approach to hibernate/suspend that might work for you.

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6406/1/

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6408/1/

describe how I got suspend / hibernate running on my DESKTOP. I like power-saving, too. Whether it will work or not on your specific configuration depends on just how broken your ACPI setup really is.

The bad news... you have to turn it on via clicking an icon before it'll run. I didn't set it to run automatically because if one is running something that takes longer than the suspend timeout, that something gets suspended to, people who don't expect to have that problem can run it as part of startup.

Tried puppy Linux:

Built from scratch from the ground up...
no overheads....light on resources...latest size
around 93 megs....Barebones - Boxing Day 2007 53megs.
Puppies from 12 megs upwards.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyLinuxMainPage

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puplets

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/VersionsPuppy

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/ReviewsPuppy

//////////////////

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=175174#175174

" This got me looking for more Puppy videos, and I've done some widgets here: "

http://klu9.50webs.com/puppystuff.html

//////////////////
Regards Chris.

I'm an avid Linux user even though I'm by no means a techie. I don't own a mobile PC so I've never had to use the suspend, but Gutsy also disappointed me with weird screen resolution issues which no one seemed to be able to help me with. Gutsy strikes me as Canonicals Vista... perhaps Hardy Heron (have to carefully type that name:-) will take care of issues, just as the SP2 will do for Vista.

I was using Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with the KDE UI. Kubuntu is behind Ubuntu a bit because Ubuntu initially supported Gnome and released a KDE version much later. The resolution issue (which happend in all flavors of /buntu) became so frustrating that I started looking for a different distribution which focused on KDE, because that's the user interface I really like.

Amazingly, most large distributions focus on Gnome these day, with KDE being implemented as a side project. This I find totally weird, since KDE is technologically ahead of Gnome.

I then found Sidux, which is Debian Sid with a KDE hat on its head and some nifty tweaks underneath. I'm very happy. It's very fast and there is no upgrade misery anymore. A special script, smxi puts the PC into init3 on the console, shutting down the graphical environment doing a save upgrade. Once finished, it gives you the option to start the GUI again and back you are. This means you install Sidux only once and from thereon the system is going to be up to date in this "fluid approach". No more re-installs of flaky upgrades. Imagine going from Windows 95 to Vista without any new installs. This is so cool.

I first thought, oh no, I'm being forced to upgrade on the console, but the usability of smxi is very good. Everthing is self-explanatory.

So far I've used SUSE, Knoppix, Kanotix, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, PuppyOS, SLAX; but so far Sidux has given me the best experience. It's still a relatively small project and there are still many things to do like a cleaner menu, but I expect them to grow rather quickly once the word gets out that upgrades are now painless.

Dropped my teeth while was reading the first part of this article: tech savvy developer gives up Ubuntu on the fifth day?

Then it turns out, that this developer uses such tools as SQL Server, Visual Studio, IIS.

Why am I not astonished now?

Randall, please do not take any offense!

"...I certainly feel that Linux as a whole needs to improve in certain key areas before it's ready for the masses, those being wireless networking, ACPI, screen setup and offline help..."

I would agree with the ACPI problem. I run SuSe 10.2 and had to disable sleep mode on my work laptop. I just shut the lid which blanks the screen but doesn't suspend or sleep. I am usually plugged into AC power though and as such, suspend isn't a big need for me.

That said, I have had no issues with wireless. I can connect to wireless easily and quickly with SuSe. I realize not all cards are supported in linux. I guess mine is since it works quite well.

You claim offline help is lacking...might be, but microsoft doesn't have the worlds greatest offline help system either. I do both windows and linux sysadmin work and I almost always go to microsoft's website or google for windows help. I rarely ever rely on offline documentation as it can get out of date quickly.

-Aaron

I am sad to hear of this, but I want to just say a quick word for Canonical. This is not just a QA oversight. This is in fact something that Linux developers and Canonical testers can't fix; the vendors must fix it. It's not a lapse and no one should be fired for it.

As for the implication that this works on Vista due to better testing, anyone experienced with any kind of development that might touch Windows users knows very clearly that not only will Microsoft receive full cooperation from vendors, vendors will _break their products_ to be compatible with Microsoft products as necessary. When no one follows standards and they all ignore you, you can't get very far.

And I'm on a proper Unix system and I don't have any of these problems. That's because Mac OSX is a FINISHED, customer ready product, not version 0.9.1.2.45, though Vista is arguably way before that...

First, I would like to inform readers that the suspend and hibernate features work just fine on my Lenovo X60 tablet using Ubuntu 7.10.

Second, you are a real complainer considering that Ubuntu and all the software it comes with is free! Vista is not perfect, and considering the price and the license agreement it should be.

At least with Ubuntu you don't have to worry about the Business Software Alliance coming after you, or the Windows Genuine calling you a software pirate when you know Staples didn't sell you used software.

All things considered, any user is better off with Ubuntu over Windows.

Randall,
I consider myself less than an expert as far as Linux is concerned. However, I'm good at getting things work. My first install of Gentoo Linux took me three days. Gentoo does not include Ubuntu's idiot-proof install scheme. I think you are suffering one of two common Window user's idiosyncrasies.

A. You find it difficult to accept technical support unless you are paying for it.

B. You expect the answer to your specific technical question to exists on-line before you have asked it.

Microsoft support is comprised of developers giving workarounds for bugs created by other developers. There are problems with this support scheme. Windows costs a fair amount of money. When all is said and done all you have learned how to do is install a bug-fix (point & click), which you possibly could have executed using the MS registry editor if the developers would let you know how. You also have to wait what is often an inordinate amount of time until the bug-fix is released. I've seen several MS support docs that indicate a known yet unresolved issue.

Linux community support is comprised of users and developers. Support is free. Once you learn how to fix your problem you have learned more about how Linux works. Bug-fix turnaround is rapid to say the least. You don't have to wait on internal Linux developers to come up with a fix. Often Linux users, or external developers, are responsible for bug-fixes.

The only time I use Windows is when one of my users asks me to, or when I must admin the domain, which I do via VMware. The windows users in the lab I admin are always bugging me about some Window's issue, that is actually a user issue. I am able to resolve "Window's issues" more efficiently than people that use it every day.

The primary organizational difference between Windows and Linux is that Linux wants its users to become more technically savvy as time passes, while Microsoft likes the average Window's user to be just that... AVERAGE.

Way to kiss the monopoly's feet.

In the long term, unless people start to move to linux, vendors will always have their products 'Microsoft only', if you want better operating systems to grow, and flourish - you'll have you take a chunk outta monopolies' ego.

If linux owned 90% of the market, i bet operating systems wouldn't be released with all ports open, or numerous other serious issues. Actually id say xp coming out with every single port open is a bigger lapse in testing that a suspend function not working.

Grow a pair,
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