Description of problem: At present, System menu includes only Suspend button if gnome-power-manager is running. It should also include Hibernate button, right below Suspend. Both buttons should obey the gnome-power-manager can_suspend and can_hibernate settings and only appear if these are turned on. Hiding Hibernate behind Shut Down.. doesn't make much sense, as this is not an action that would have an effect similar to that of shut down or reboot of the system (i.e. just like with Suspend, you get right back where you left off when you turn the system back on). Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.16.1-3.fc6 How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. N/A Actual results: Hibernate button not present on System menu. Suspend button doesn't obey can_suspend of g-p-m. Expected results: Hibernate button should be on the System menu. Both Suspend and Hibernate buttons should obey can_ settings from g-p-m. Additional info: Some systems cannot do both hibernate and suspend, but one of those works. It is conventient to have just one of the buttons displayed on the menu to avoid nasty surprises when wrong button is pressed. g-p-m settings are a good way to do this.
I think upstream does what you're proposing, too, so I think you're right, we should probably change it.
I don't agree. We had a sane rationale for putting Hibernate where it is now. Having both Hibernate and Suspend in the ui visible at the same time is a mistake, imo.
The rationale really only holds up if its called "Power Off" and not "Shut down" Also, upstream rejected the idea... Ideally, we wouldn't have both, but instead would just have one option that does both (flush everything to swap, then suspend to ram).
Also, this has really confused quite a few users. I don't know if they're used to windows stuffing it all in shutdown or what, but it's really confused people.
Regarding comment #2 that having both buttons is a mistake. I would agree with that if: - every machine out there was capable of Suspend (which I know for sure isn't the case) - Suspend actually had Suspend2 functionality behind it, which first wrote an image to disk and then suspended to RAM (or not if the system didn't support that), therefore making sure that if the battery runs out, we can get back to where we were As it stands, it is just too easy for a user to pick Suspend from the menu and stuff their system up. It should be possible to remove that button completely (just like it should be possible to not have Hibernate at all, if it's causing problems). Regarding the Hibernate button, users would have to know that hibernate can be had by pressing Shut Down. Which doesn't make sense because, if they wanted to Shut Down, they wouldn't want to Hibernate. These are two completely different things.
well, really the kernel shouldn't advertise that it can suspend (or hibernate) if it won't work right. HAL has a blacklist I think though, it's just not populated.
Yeah, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to tell if hibernate and/or suspend are going to work without trying. I was more thinking of admins rolling out machines and ticking options on/off, depending on the tests they've done. Then the users get only the choices that are safe.
Just a followup on this... I just booted F7T2 Live CD and this is still the same.
Resolve as Won't fix?
Yeah, I'm not fussed. I think the overall suspend/hibernate/snapshot/whatever_Linus_thinks_is_best_:-) thingy first needs to get sorted out in the kernel, then we can address this properly. Feel free to close.
Closing, as per previous comments.