Know-nothingh Noob trying to troubleshoot suspend/hibernate issues

24 respostas [Última entrada]
brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

Hello Trisquel Forum:

Your patience please, I'm making the commitment to ditch all my Microsoft Windows crap. I've had quite enough of that outfit. My problem is I know pretty much nothing about unix and my old, calcified brain is not very absorbent anymore. If there's a newbie forum more suitable for this inquiry, just direct me and I'll re-post there.

So my situation is that I'm a basic user - I only need something for email & web-browsing. I'm very tired of throwing away money on toxic hardware so am trying to get Trisquel installed on old machines I have hanging about. Currently I'm working on a Dell 610. Got around the wifi issue by purchasing a USB wifi card.

Next problem is the thing is locking up when it goes into suspend mode.

I'm reading the instructions at

https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/troubleshooting-suspendhibernate

and because I don't know anything, I can't get through the first set of instructions.

I have added the "nomodeset" to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= line

I ran the update-grub command and was informed by xterm "You must run this as root"

So I typed sudo update-grub. xterm prompted me for my credentials and then returned

"nomodeset: not found"

I have tried putting a comma after the "quiet splash" entry on the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line, but it makes no difference. I get the "nomodeset: not found" response.

Can anyone get me past this one?

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

O, I think I got the grub file right now, because when I run update-grub I get:

bj@bj-Latitude-D610:~$ sudo update-grub
/usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig: 9: /etc/default/grub: nomodeset: not found

Where does this leave me?

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

Hello! This /proc/cmdline is just the file. To see what's in it youcat /proc/cmdline

The sudo command gives you super user powers. Hence https://xkcd.com/149/

So, how exactly does your GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line read at the moment?

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

Lembas: It reads right now:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" "nomodeset"

That seems to be correct, because when I command it to update it's telling me it can't find that nomodeset file.

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/24/2010

Write:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

Change it to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

I have edited the wiki, is it any clearer now?

Then sudo update-grub
and so on and so forth.

Good luck!

suitsmeveryfine
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Joined: 08/15/2014

Welcome to the free software community, Brian!

I have found that most suspend/resume issues are magically solved when installing a more recent kernel, such as linux-libre 4.1. I would recommend that you follow the instructions here. Scroll down to the heading "Using jxself's repository". When you come to the heading "Installation of the new Linux-libre Kernel" you might want to open the "Synaptic package manager" to find the available kernels.

SuperTramp83

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Joined: 10/31/2014

Latest kernel as pointed out may help a lot.
welcome to the libre world!

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

On the kernel suggestion - all that terminal work looks a little daunting for the uninitiated. I have just started with xterm, and those instructions are kind of intimidating. Can this not be done through the software updater? Or, my install is fresh and there's nothing special going on with it - I could reinstall Trisquel completely. Are either of those options possible?

Thanks - brian

suitsmeveryfine
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Joined: 08/15/2014

It's really not that difficult to add jxself's repository and install a new version of Linux. Linux is just one component that is easily replaced. Reinstalling Trisquel would take much longer and it would probably not help you.

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

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Joined: 10/31/2014

go on the jxself's website and follow instructions. If you can read and copy-paste in the terminal, you'll have no issues. If you have doubts/questions feel free to ask. :)

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/24/2010

There are instructions in Trisquel's documentation too: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/update-linux-libre-kernel

suitsmeveryfine
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Joined: 08/15/2014

This is what I linked to above.

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

Ah. Ok. I imagined there was some kind of delimiter required. Didn't think to do it that way. Well that works then.

So my grub file works now. Of course - it didn't resolve the problem. Had a hunch it wouldn't.

I will attempt the kernel thing tomorrow morning. Just to confirm the version I have I used the uname -r command

bj@bj-Latitude-D610:~$ uname -r
3.13.0-39-lowlatency

So my kernel is 3.13.0-39. Yes? Which means I'm not current.

So then I will try this and see if I can get through it. Will update tomorrow.

BTW all, thanks for the welcome and the assistance.

brian

strypey
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Joined: 05/14/2015

Welcome to Trisquel Brian! No problem too l33t or too noob to ask here :)

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, another common cause of suspend/ hibernate problems is insufficient swap space. In Windows, this is sometimes referred to as a "page file" and is just a file on the Windows partition. With GNU/Linux its usual to have a separate partition set as the swap partition during install. For suspend/ hibernate to work, it needs to be at least the size of your physical RAM (I usually go for double if I have plenty of hard drive space).

suitsmeveryfine
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Joined: 08/15/2014

The Trisquel installer usually creates a big enough swap partition so I don't think this is his problem. Running linux 3.13 is not ideal though.

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

Ok. Daunting as it was, I waded through the kernel update and it actually worked. (Aside: the instructions at https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/update-linux-libre-kernel need some clarification; I ended up going to the jxself site directly, as suggested, and had a much easier time). So now a uname command returns:

4.2.3-gnu.pae #1 SMP Sat Oct 3 17:02:41 UTC 2015 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux

Unfortunately, this did not resolve the problem.

Now, as far as the swap file suggestion goes, swapon -s returns:

Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda5 partition 786428 0 -1

I have no idea if that's 786MB or KB. Couldn't find a reference to it. free -m returns

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1000 934 65 13 13 332
-/+ buffers/cache: 589 411
Swap: 767 0 767

Which looks like 1 gig of memory, which is certainly not a lot. But could it be the cause?

I'll wait to hear on this before I do anything else. If mem is OK then I guess it's off to the quirks?

Thanks - brian

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/24/2010

If the RAM usage is above 1 GB when you try to hibernate (suspend does not use the disk), then, yes, it can be the cause. The 1 GB threshold is not exact though: the content of the main memory is zipped before being dumped onto the swap.

Trisquel's documentation is a wiki. Please improve it if you feel it is not clear.

suitsmeveryfine
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Joined: 08/15/2014

Okay, too bad! At least you've got a newer kernel now which might give you other benefits.

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

Well I'll see if I can get another memory stick into the machine and see what happens.

Somewhat off topic but still related to this thread - are there manufacturers that are generally more friendly to the Trisquel GNU/Linux OS? I'm not at all adverse to buying a used machine. I suppose Dell is probably the absolutely worst choice for a Trisquel based machine, but don't know what's right. If this is too off topic I'll post it as a new topic.

brian

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

You need more swap, not more memory. You can enlarge your swap or make a swap file.

The easy way to solve all these issues is to get one of the machines listed at https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

I just realized something looks odd. Why does the 'used' parameter of my swap file/partition come up as zero? There's nothing in there - nothing being stored. Is this indicative of a problem right off the bat? If I'm not storing anything in my swap file how can my machine come out of suspend mode? Isn't that where the current image winds up?

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

Try opening heavy apps, like LibreOffice and abrowser with many tabs. Then you should see a non-zero value.

Also, suspend is not using disk but RAM, hibernate goes to disk.

brian
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Joined: 10/17/2015

So then I take it that I have to try some of the quirk things. That appeared very needly-haystackish hit-or-miss. Are there any other options I should attempt first?

MeNoMore
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Joined: 10/05/2015

Welcome, I hope you enjoy Trisquel!!! (: