Can't hibernate

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GNUbahn
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Why can't I choose hibernation?

I have 8GB of RAM and 8+GB of swap

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Magic Banana

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If you encrypted your swap (did you?), it is normal you cannot hibernate. Same thing if your swap file/partition is too small. In both cases, this command would tell:
$ swapon -s

GNUbahn
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Joined: 02/18/2016

I didn't for this setup.

$ swaopn -s

gives me

Filename Type Size Used Priority

And nothing more

Magic Banana

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Well, you do not have any swap (or it is deactivated): it is normal you cannot hibernate. You can create either a swap partition (from a live system, using fdisk or GNU parted or GParted, its graphical interface, which is far less intimidating) or, easier (especially if you have no partition to shrink; XFS cannot be shrunk), a swap file (here /swap, of size 4 GiB but setting it to the size of your RAM makes sense: you will be able to hibernate even if your RAM is full):
$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap bs=1024 count=4194304
$ sudo mkswap /swap
$ sudo swapon /swap

For the swap to be enabled at init (rather than manually executing 'swapon' after every reboot), one line must be appended to /etc/fstab (here for the swap file above, indicate the partition instead of the file if you chose a swap partition):
$ echo '/swap swap swap defaults 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

EDIT: actually, there is more to do to be able to hibernate using a swap file (rather than a swap partition). See https://wiki.debian.org/Hibernation/Hibernate_Without_Swap_Partition for those additional steps.

GNUbahn
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of either solution, i.e. partition vs file?

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None in terms of performance. We could say that it is easier to make and share (between systems) a swap partition as long as you have free disk space (typically before an install), whereas it is easier to make a swap file as an afterthought. Also, it is easier to change the size of a swap file. However, as I recently discovered (and commented on above), having a swap file work for hibernation requires additional steps.

GNUbahn
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For some reason it was not activated. This is the first time I have experienced swap not being active after a fresh install.

Actually. when I open Gparted the partition was there but indicated with black (and a warning triangle, if I remember correctly).

I deleted that partition and created a new swap. Running the 'swapon -s' command still showed no swap. I restarted, still no swap. Then I opened Gparted again and noticed that swap wasn't on.

Like I said, this is the first time I have experienced this. Have done something wrong during installation?

GNUbahn
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After restarting the computer the swap is again not active!

What will I have to do to make it permanently active?

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You can first try to manually activate your swap partition (here assuming it is /dev/sda1: adapt the command to your case; 'lsblk' helps to know what is your swap partition):
$ sudo swapon /dev/sda1

If it works ('sudo swapon -s' shows it), you can run this command (again, modify the partition to fit your case):
$ echo '/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

The line appended to /etc/fstab, "/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0", asks for the activation of the swap at init.

GNUbahn
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My swap is on sda2. I ran your first command and when checking swap was on. Then I ran your second command and restarted. Swap is not on!?

This is really weird. I mean, I am by no means either a savvy, a techie or anything, but I have installed GNU/linux a lot of times (to some extend because I am no savvy, techie etc.). And I have never experienced that swap did not work after installation.

What is going on?

Magic Banana

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I do not know. Is it enabled when you execute 'sudo swapon -a'?

Show us the outputs of these commands:
$ lsblk
$ grep swap /etc/fstab
$ swapon -s

GNUbahn
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sudo swapon -a

gives me

swapon: /dev/mapper/cryptswap1: stat failed: No such file or directory
swapon: /dev/sda1: read swap header failed: Invalid argument

Did I mention that I only encrypted /home?

The rest of your commands return:

gnubahn@libreT400s:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 119.2G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 23.3G 0 part /
├─sda2 8:2 0 8.4G 0 part
└─sda3 8:3 0 87.6G 0 part /home
sr0 11:0 1 4.8G 0 rom /media/gnubahn/DVDVolume
gnubahn@libreT400s:~$ grep swap /etc/fstab
# swap was on /dev/sda2 during installation
#UUID=ade109a9-fce9-4921-b762-9e15b3cde2b5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/mapper/cryptswap1 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
gnubahn@libreT400s:~$ swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority

Magic Banana

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You wrote /dev/sda1 instead of /dev/sda2 in /etc/fstab. Also you (used to?) have your swap encrypted what does not allow (at least not naturally) hibernation. Edit /etc/fstab to remove the line "/dev/mapper/cryptswap1 none swap sw 0 0" and to turn "/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0" into "/dev/sda2 swap swap defaults 0 0" (here using the GEdit text editor):
$ gksu gedit /etc/fstab
Save the file and run this command to enable swapping:
$ sudo swapon -a
This command will tell if your swap aws really enables:
$ swapon -s
If so, it should be automatically enable at init.

GNUbahn
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I got it to work - apparently permanent. But I have one more issue, which I experienced while I was only having a temporary solution and again in the end with the permanent solution: When waking up my machine from hibernation, it wakes up just a few seconds and then hibernates again (I am using 'FN+F4').

I consider reinstalling from fresh...

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I do not see how it would help. You can reformat the swap partition (that may help since it used to be encrypted, but I doubt so):
$ sudo swapoff -a
$ sudo mkswap /dev/sda2
$ sudo swapon -a

And you can try a more recent kernel: https://jxself.org/linux-libre/

GNUbahn
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That gave no change.

Strangely though, using 'Fn+F12' to wake it up does work!

Could the problem be about assignation of keys?

Magic Banana

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Apparently. I is a quite common problem.

GNUbahn
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Do you think updating to a newer kernel would help?

Magic Banana

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It can. Everything hardware-related deals with the kernel.

GNUbahn
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Ok then, I'll give it a shot.

GNUbahn
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Unfortunately no change...

GNUbahn
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I find it not unusual that some problems which 'seem' OS related- for non-techies like myself - get solved by a re-installation.

But I will try your advise first, thanks.