Is there any way to enable hibernation in linux system. I want to know the ways and commands that can be used for hibernating the system or letting the system go to sleep.
Hibernate a linux system ?
Hi Raquel C Mitchell,
Solution No 1: There’s an application that makes a Linux machine to hibernate and resume safely. It’s launched through this command klaptop_acip_helper. Try this command to hibernate your Linux machine with command line:
klaptop_acpi_helper –hibernate
It will save the current system state in the SWAP file and the machine then hibernates. Just, press the power button when you need to wake this thing up.
Solution No 2: You can also use swsusp. It runs in user space.
Solution No 3: You can also use Software Suspend from here but you’ll have to patch the software because it’s not included in the Linux Kernel.
Hibernate a linux system ?
Hibernate works perfectly well on Microsoft Windows. In Linux, it is also possible to hibernate the computer but you need to test if hibernate works on your computer. Hibernate and making the computer go to sleep mode or standby are two different things. In sleep mode or standby mode, your CPU goes on standby.
The computer puts all open documents and running applications in memory and on your hard drive then puts the CPU in low-power state which allows you to quickly wake the computer and continue your work. In this state, you cannot unplug your computer because you will lose data. In hibernate, everything that is stored in the memory is written to the “hiberfil.sys” file or the hibernator file.
This way, you can safely unplug your computer. When you boot your computer, “NTLDR” or the NT Loader looks for a valid “hiberfil.sys” file and if it finds it, all it contains is loaded back to the memory and your computer is returned back to the state when you hibernate it. To use hibernate in Linux, you need to test your computer first if it’s going to work.
To test your computer in Linux, press CTRL + ALT + T to open the Terminal. In the terminal window, type without quotes “sudo pm-hibernate” then press Enter and then enter your password when you are prompted. Once your computer turns off, turn it back on then check if your open or running applications re-open.
If it works, you can run the same command every time you want to hibernate your computer. If it doesn’t work and the test fails, check if your partition is using the Btrfs file system. Btrfs file system has been proven to make hibernation fail. You need to reformat your hard drive and use any of the three other file systems native to Ubuntu (Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4).
