RIP S3 sleep... Took years to get it to work reliably under Linux, then we had a good decade+ run of it "just working" like this, now back to trying to weed out all the wacky platform quirks and weird hardware/firmware behavior that make the S0ix states be just barely unusable.
Linux used to be able to do S3 sleep well, and now it can't because... new platforms removed S3 for S0ix? Or S3 became even more complicated with mroe platform quirks and weird hardware?
The problem is platforms moved away from S3 sleep. I've heard people claim it was mostly so managed Windows laptops could force updates with the lid shut and the laptop suspended.
Now I have to worry about my laptop randomly overheating itself in my backpack and even catching fire.
FreeBSD and Suspend/Resume… About 10 years ago, I switched from FreeBSD to Linux because I couldn't get suspend/resume to work reliably (i.e. suspend/resume cycle succeeds and it doesn't drain my laptop battery in between) on FreeBSD on my Thinkpad.
And this was only Suspend to RAM. Suspend to Disk is really nice to have, especially if coupled with hybrid standby, as on macOS and Windows by default.
I really appreciate that people still maintain FreeBSD on the desktop, though.
I recently bought a new laptop because I could only resume to work on OpenBSD, but not Linux. Suspend worked great under Linux, but without resume, the experience was sub-par.
It's unfortunate that I needed Linux to get some of my work done.
Odd that you would say "only Suspend to RAM", because that is far more difficult to reliably implement in terms of hardware compatibility than Suspend to Disk.
AFAICT "Suspend to RAM" is basically stopping the CPU, powering down the peripherals, and keeping the DRAM unchanged and refreshed. It should be the easier option since very little state needs to be saved explicitly, the OS and apps should just receive a signal that they were interrupted, so some peripherals have to be re-initialized, and things like network and USB connections need to be re-established.
Windows used to work about this well back in the XP days, possibly Windows 7 as well. Plenty of times I hit the "sleep" button that Logitech put right next to the esc key (....) and resumed the system to find everything working as expected.
Not sure if the embedded video is suspend to RAM or disk. Also not sure why there wasn't a PW prompt upon resume, but I'm not a BSD person, just someone who is paranoid about PW prompts.
feel lucky. s3 suspend quit working on my thinkpad in -CURRENT some months ago after having worked for like a decade. i didn't notice until i pulled a molten hot slab of locked up laptop out of my bag
> Why not FreeBSD 14.2 as its already available? Because pkg(8) packages are built against ‘oldest’ FreeBSD version in the current tree – which means FreeBSD 14.1 – and that often breaks kernel related packages such as really important drm-kmod or virtualbox-ose-kmod packages.
FreeBSD still lacks basic LTS functionality and keeping distribution coherent.
May be one day some vendor will create LTS distribution based on FreeBSD with at least 5 years support cycle?
unluckily, FreeBSD project uses misleading info here - your apps are OUT of equation here, they do split "base" system (if traffic router is your appliance of choice, you may be fine with that), but all useful stuff is in "ports"/"packages" and is rolling updates.
> I will upgrade from 14.1 to 14.2 shortly after 14.1 runs out of support – which would guarantee having working pkg(8) packages on FreeBSD 14.2.
The way I'm reading this, you can just move between minors when they expire rather than when the new minor is available:
- stable/14 was released Nov 2023
- 14.0 support ended Sep 2024, move to 14.1
- 14.1 support ends Mar 2025, move to 14.2
Rinse and repeat. stable/13 was released Apr 2021 and the last minor (13.4) is still supported until Jun 2025, it's four years just like the previous major releases. I don't see how any of this shows an operating system that "lacks basic LTS functionality" or "keeping the distribution coherent" -- especially the latter point is strange considering FreeBSD by design is a lot more "coherent" than Linux (whether that's a good thing or not is completely a matter of taste).
The only reason I still buy and rely on first-party hardware is how well (and fast) the suspend/resume works. Never a single problem.
Completely opposite experience with Linux/*BSD though, across dozens of different hardware setups, almost all of them have had some kind of quirk/bug that made it unusable.
Yes, but they are all way out of my price range. I have also read reviews and many posts online that show that even these Linux-focused companies cannot support 100% of their own hardware lineup with working drivers.
I have had very mixed experiences when suspending a laptop using Windows, various Linux distributions, MacOS and Windows 7-11. MacOS is the most polished yet, but Linux (kernel 2.4 to 6.8) has never nailed this. Often times the kernel refuses to sleep and the laptop will hotbox in the bag until the battery runs out. The same has happened on the other OSes, but less often.
It looks like this particular FreeBSD installation (we don't know if it's out of the box or customized, and haven't seen it side by side with another hardware setup) works very well. Wonder if the results are the same if they closed the lid rather than remembering to press the button. Also, I wonder why this doesn't trigger any authentication when starting back up. Anyone could snatch that laptop and still be logged in.
Readit News
Maybe in another five years...
Linux used to be able to do S3 sleep well, and now it can't because... new platforms removed S3 for S0ix? Or S3 became even more complicated with mroe platform quirks and weird hardware?
Now I have to worry about my laptop randomly overheating itself in my backpack and even catching fire.
I really appreciate that people still maintain FreeBSD on the desktop, though.
It's unfortunate that I needed Linux to get some of my work done.
What am I missing?
Not sure if the embedded video is suspend to RAM or disk. Also not sure why there wasn't a PW prompt upon resume, but I'm not a BSD person, just someone who is paranoid about PW prompts.
Its Suspend to Disk (S3).
> Also not sure why there wasn't a PW prompt upon resume, but I'm not a BSD person, just someone who is paranoid about PW prompts.
The purpose of this videos were to show only the suspend/resume process of FreeBSD system.
In my daily life I have two shortcuts related to this:
- [SUPER] + [L] - locks the system and leaves it running - and it requires to enter password
- [SUPER] + [CTRL] + [ALT] + [L] - locks the system AND PUTS IT INTO S3 SLEEP - and it requires to enter password if you wake it up
Hope that helps.
Regards,
vermaden
S3 is suspend to RAM. Suspend to disk is S4.
Also, if it's Xorg lockscreen, then it's probably not very secure to begin with.
I want to update my hardware to a Lenovo. Not looking forward to new "sleep won't work no matter what you try" adventures.
That sht is like printers: should always work, never does.
FreeBSD still lacks basic LTS functionality and keeping distribution coherent.
May be one day some vendor will create LTS distribution based on FreeBSD with at least 5 years support cycle?
Details:
- https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2024-Jul...
> I will upgrade from 14.1 to 14.2 shortly after 14.1 runs out of support – which would guarantee having working pkg(8) packages on FreeBSD 14.2.
The way I'm reading this, you can just move between minors when they expire rather than when the new minor is available:
- stable/14 was released Nov 2023
- 14.0 support ended Sep 2024, move to 14.1
- 14.1 support ends Mar 2025, move to 14.2
Rinse and repeat. stable/13 was released Apr 2021 and the last minor (13.4) is still supported until Jun 2025, it's four years just like the previous major releases. I don't see how any of this shows an operating system that "lacks basic LTS functionality" or "keeping the distribution coherent" -- especially the latter point is strange considering FreeBSD by design is a lot more "coherent" than Linux (whether that's a good thing or not is completely a matter of taste).
Completely opposite experience with Linux/*BSD though, across dozens of different hardware setups, almost all of them have had some kind of quirk/bug that made it unusable.
Rally game is Colin McRae Rally 2.0 on WINE32.
Top left is Sensible World of Soccer 96/97 game running on DOSBox.
Not sure what the point is? Is it better, or is it as good as those other systems?
It looks like this particular FreeBSD installation (we don't know if it's out of the box or customized, and haven't seen it side by side with another hardware setup) works very well. Wonder if the results are the same if they closed the lid rather than remembering to press the button. Also, I wonder why this doesn't trigger any authentication when starting back up. Anyone could snatch that laptop and still be logged in.
In my daily life I have two shortcuts related to this:
- [SUPER] + [L] - locks the system and leaves it running - and it requires to enter password
- [SUPER] + [CTRL] + [ALT] + [L] - locks the system AND PUTS IT INTO S3 SLEEP - and it requires to enter password if you wake it up
Hope that helps.
Regards,
vermaden
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