Comment 14 for bug 710796

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David Kastrup (dak) wrote :

I have an IBM Thinkpad T41. For me, the screen under X11 is borked terminally after suspend. Suspend also would not be an option most of the time because when I stop working to freeze state, this can be for quite long, and I don't keep my power supply running while the computer is off -- a waste of energy.

The current policies in the GUI and, temporarily in the kernel, are a complete nuisance. Hibernation also refuses to work when using the appropriate ACPI button. Another nuisance.

If I need to hibernate in a hurry, having to switch to a virtual terminal, typing sudo hibernate and keying in my password is quite an aggravation. It also means that the system will come up without asking for a password. The "Suspend" entry in the power menu will, as explained, cause my screen to go bad. All that works in that case is switching to a text console and shutting down the computer (switching back to the X11 console does not work).

I don't understand what gains are there from disabling/hiding functionality. How developers can assume that they know the working options (and their relative merits and problems) better than the person working with the computer, is beyond me.

Who are we trying to protect? People that persist using a non-working way of shutting down their computer time after time, even though they see other options in the menu and keep breaking things in the same, non-working manner, time after time?

Nobody as stupid as that is protectable from his folly.