LaptopTestingTeam FAQ

Please put quick Gotchas/FAQs that would be useful to other Laptop Testers here.

Hibernate

Hibernate (System->Logout->Hibernate, aka 'Suspend to Disk') will only work if have a valid and working swap partition. There kernel will complain with an error message such as:

Aug 30 23:02:35 localhost kernel: [4325496.559000] Stopping tasks: ==============|
Aug 30 23:02:36 localhost kernel: [4325496.572000] Freeing memory...  ^H-^H\^H|^H/^Hdone (68051 pages freed)
Aug 30 23:02:36 localhost kernel: [4325497.815000] swsusp: FATAL: cannot find swap device, try swapon -a!
Aug 30 23:02:36 localhost kernel: [4325497.815000] swsusp: Restoring Highmem

You can see if you have one by doing:

$ cat /proc/swaps
Filename                                Type            Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sda5                               partition       979924  211768  -1

X failing to start

If X is totally busted and gives you the (blue) dialogue screen stating that X is failing start, but you are unable to send any keypresses. The following may get you out of the situation enough to debug it.

• Pressing Ctrl-d (end-of-file) may send the keystrokes that you have typed but which have been buffered and haven't appeared.

• Pressing Alt-SysRq-e should kill most programs and allow you to switch to another virtual terminal using Alt-F2, where you should (hopefully) find a login-prompt.