Thinkpads Forum

Hello all!

I have been installing and running various LINUX distros (mostly Ubuntu and Mepis) on my T21 for several months now.

I am completely sold, except for one continuing issue. The sleep and hibernate functions never work!

I basically use the computer as a desktop at home and my habit is to not turn it off, but just leave it on all the time. I suspect that this, combined with no sleeping and hibernating, led to the recent demise of the LCD display (inverter I think). Is this possible???

I have tried and tried to get an answer on Ubuntu's user forum about how to enable the sleep and hibernate functions but have never found a solution.

Does anyone know anything about these issues, especially for a
T21?

Thanks ahead of time, Gigi

Here is some info about hibernation on a T23 under Fedora Core. Some of it may be relevant to you...

http://www.physics.wustl.edu/~alford/th ... 2.html#apm

Sorry to bump, but this is precisely my problem and I haven't been able to find a solution for months. I REALLY want to fully convert to Linux on my T21, but it just isn't practical for me if I can't get suspend to work. I got this laptop with the intent to run Linux, but this is just standing in my way.

I see other topics with similar issues and still no definitive solution:

That link above refers to FC2 when it is up to 6 now. I have my doubts about it working - has it been tried?

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... hlight=t21
Does this work - no response from the original poster. If so, how does one go about implementing it?

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... hlight=t21
I don't have an issue with sound - I just can't wake from a suspend.

This weekend I'll try installing SUSE again and try disabling acpi as this may work, but it would be a shame to loose it's functionality - I'd very much prefer to get Linux working with acpi enabled. (FYI I have a fully up to date BIOS)

I've tried MEPIS 6.0, Ubuntu 6.06 & 6.10, SUSE 10.1, and Fedora Core 6. None have worked for me - I'm willing to get 'under the hood' to fix this issue. There are solutions to "resume problems" for other laptops, but I was hoping a T2X owner could offer some wisdom and specific advice in this matter (I am a bit n00bish when it comes to getting down and dirty with the command line). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey there. I am running Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) on my T21 now. If you go to system-> preferences->power managment and then choose "do nothing" in all the drop-down menus it seems to help.

However, the screen never completely goes dark-it will retain a faint backlit glow. This is okay during the day for me but then at night I will shut down completely to save my backlight.

Let me know what you find if you ever find some better solution.

One day I will get a modern laptop! But for some reason I just love my T21.

Good luck!

For me it seems it was acpi - if you can figure out how to disable acpi in the kernel more power to you, but SUSE 10.1 has the option to install w/ no ACPI (I believe it's the second option on the first screen of installation). Suspend to RAM works great - I haven't tried to disk as of yet. I'm just not clear on what I m giving up with acpi disabled.

Also, Fn F3 should turn off your screen if that's all you want.

* well no sound when I resume and the mixer dissapears
I can get sound back

After resuming, as root I did

/etc/rc.d/alsasound stop
/etc/rc.d/alsasound unload
/etc/rc.d/alsasound reload
/etc/rc.d/alsasound start

But no mixer - back to the google board - there has to be a more elegant solution to this

My screen would not go totally dark (backlight still faintly lit) using all distros I tried except Freespire. If someone knows how to read the setup code the answer may lie there.

Sleep works in Ubuntu 6.10 on my X21, though hibernate does not. At least I can close it up and open it without shutting down.

You can add append option to turn off acpi at linux start. It looks like;
append = "acpi=off". I do not know what boot menager you use. If lilo, edit /etc/lilo.conf. In grub, you must edit /boot/grub/menu.list.
Generaly it's better way to use apm in T2xx. I have T23 with Slackware11 and kernel patched witch suspend2, and have no problems with suspend_to_ram, hibernate, and hot Fn keys (F3,F4 works fine). I use apm module (with acpi was some problems with suspend to ram).

I just wanted to add a few links. I'm considering giving x/k/Ubuntu 6.10 a shot and try to get acpi to work with suspend2.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_ma ... t_features

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_ACPI_work

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ibm-acpi
ACPI 3rd party driver - I'll admit I'm wary about trying this - but maybe I'll get brave (or someone else could be brave for me? )

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Software_Suspend_2
Some have had success with this and it sounds great, but primarily I'm concerned with Suspend to RAM.

It works for me currently with SUSE 10.1 (acpi off) and I just manual restart the sound module via:
sudo /usr/sbin/rcalsasound restart