01/18 - Get suspended, punk!

No, I did not get suspended (lol). I am today talking about my computer's suspend feature.

The beginning of my troubles

When I installed Gentoo, I didn't pay much attention to laptop suspension. It was only one day I think I had class and I had just closed the lid of my laptop to go for class. Much to my surprise when I pulled my computer out of my bag, the fan of my computer was running at full tilt and it was as hot as a thousand suns. I very quickly realized what had gone wrong, my laptop had not suspended properly, the screen never turned off, and my poor computer was being suffocated in my backpack, unbeknownst to me.
Naturally, when I had the time, I right away got to trying to solve the issue. I checked my kernel that it had support for suspend-to-ram (which it did), and went to configure my laptop's power settings (governed by elogind) to enable it. It never worked. I never got suspend-to-ram working. I eventually checked my dmesg logs, and realized to my horror, that only S0 and S5 were supported by my computer. For those who are not in the know, S2 is what is known as suspend-to-ram. S5 is hibernation (suspend-to-disk). S0 is Microsoft's DOGSHIT IDLING FUCKUP. Like all things, Microsoft, S0 was developed by the most cocky bastards on the planet who thought they knew what was best for the consumer(company) and that they are God's gift to the Earth, put on this planet to develop God's work. But, if Terry Davis was building God's temple, Microsoft software engineers are building a giant temple for Satan worship. S0 FUCKING SUCKS. It is super finicky, and I could never get it to fucking work. Now, normally I would just tell myself to piss off and use something else, after all, no one is forcing me to use S0 right? NO. BECAUSE MICROSOFT WAS SUCH A FUCKING LARGE MARKET SHARE, THEY HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN ABLE TO KILL OFF SUSPEND-TO-RAM. MY LAPTOP STRAIGHT UP HAS NO FIRMWARE TO SUPPORT SUSPEND-TO-RAM BECAUSE THE STUPID IDIOTS AT MICROSOFT THOUGHT THEY HAD JUST DEVELOPED NOBEL PRIZE WORTHY SOFTWARE. Now you might be saying "This is super unreasonable. After all, don't you have S5? Why not just hibernate?" Well here is my answer. RAM is faster than any storage (unless you are like comparing bargain bin DDR3 and like PCIE Gen 4 1000$ SSDs). Also, hibernate isn't quite as "open-and-go" as suspend-to-ram. It doesn't help that companies like Intel are also super complicit, introducing s2idle, which no matter how much I tried to tinker with, it would never work properly.
So long story short, S0 never worked, so whenever I needed to move where I was sitting, and I couldn't just hold my laptop in my hands, I shut off my computer, and made sure to never close my laptop lid.

Miracles do happen

Fast forward to this past winter break. I was updating my system when Portage told me I had config files to update. So I took a look and noticed the elogind config file was being modified. I didn't think too much of it as I never really got suspend working. So I accepted the updated version and moved on with my life. Now fast forward again to yesterday. I was at a CREATE club meeting when I pulled my laptop out of my bag, and opened the lid. Expecting to see the Dell logo, I was shocked to instead see my lockscreen. I was mystified. It turns out whatever is in this new config file (or maybe there was some firmware update that I don't remember installing), that got S0 working. So now instead of powering my computer down, I can just close the lid and throw it into my bag and do not have to worry about it cooking itself.

Moral of the story: S0 might be working now, but I spent who knows how many hours trying to get it and S2 to work. Dear Microsoft, it is ok to try and reinvent the wheel. If you make the wheel more durable, able to be used on rougher terrain and give the rider a smoother ride, that is ok. But please don't fucking force me to use your stupid new wheel and realize that the screws you designed don't work and the wheel collapses when it hits a small pebble.

Josh