[kwlug-disc] Using mSata drives

Bob Jonkman bjonkman at sobac.com
Wed Jan 15 19:46:06 EST 2014 

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I've always set "Close lid" to hibernate, but that hasn't worked for
me in years. Probably something to do with cryptswap and random
initialization values -- I recently read something about initializing
cryptswap with a keyfile so that hibernate can decrypt the swap, but I
haven't done anything about that.

Since I switched from Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 16 the "Close lid"
behaviour changed to "Suspend". I was happily surprised to find that
battery power is enough to keep suspend alive for over 24 hours, so I
think I'll be keeping it like that for a while.

- --Bob.


On 14-01-15 09:54 AM, unsolicited wrote:
> I do / would do much the same.
> 
> Closing the lid should do nothing but turn off the screen (make
> sure it does, they do get warm). Unless I explicitly tell it to do
> something via button or keyboard press. (Let's overnight backups
> run and keep screen off. Else, without screen off, no need for
> night lights in the house!)
> 
> Seems to me sleep and hibernate, let alone off, are distinct
> buttons - you might want to make sure it is so set.
> 
> I don't much trust sleep or hibernate so don't use it as much as
> power off. Even then I usually do that via shutdown -h or shutdown
> -r. Especially given frequency of kernel updates.
> 
> I probably use the power button for powering up only, the inbuilt 
> keystroke for sleep, and menu entries for hibernate. YMMV.
> 
> Bear in mind sleep and hibernate are often problematic for
> Windows, frequently due to hardware / drivers. They seem to work
> better on Linux - imagine that!
> 
> 
> On 14-01-15 09:29 AM, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
>> Regarding the lid thing, I always disable it, and restrict sleep
>> to me explicitly pressing the power button, or sleep
>> automatically if battery is low (8%), and hibernate if it is
>> critical (2%).
>> 
>> I am on KDE (Kubuntu 12.04), and here is a screen shot to show
>> the power settings.
>> 
>> There must be something equivalent in Gnome/Unity.
>> 
>> http://i.imgur.com/Y8x7Zq4.png
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 8:48 AM, CrankyOldBugger 
>> <crankyoldbugger at gmail.com>wrote:
>> 
>>> Good lively discussion we have going on here.  Lots of good
>>> ideas put forth.  Thanks to everyone who kicked in.
>>> 
>>> I find myself wondering about hibernation, as in the past I've
>>> had problems with this particular laptop not hibernating
>>> correctly.  If you close the lid, you will be forced to kill
>>> then cold boot the sucker. So I might do more investigating to
>>> see if I can use the mSata for hibernating.
>>> 
>>> And yes, as it shipped, the mSata was meant as a cache for the
>>> Windows 8 install.  I made the system even faster by erasing W8
>>> and installing Ubuntu...  Other than the lid closing issue,
>>> this laptop seems like it was made for Ubuntu.  The OS just
>>> dropped in nicely without any issues.
>>> 
>>> It just seems a shame to not use the mSata, even if it is only
>>> 16gig.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 15 January 2014 07:28, Chris Craig <kwlug.org at ciotog.net>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> ... There's still SSD caching, which is what dm-cache would
>>>> provide. This was the original intent of the drive, from what
>>>> I can tell. It would likely provide a nice speed boost
>>>> without needing to have / on it.
>>>> 
>>>> If the memory stays at 8GB, then Jeff could even use it for
>>>> both SSD caching and swap/hibernate.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 15 January 2014 00:04, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> He didn't think it was in use.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The list recommended no swap at all.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And if used, not used for swap for premature wear of the
>>>>> SSD.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Frequently, people want more than 16GB in their system.
>>>>> (Let alone single spindle backup/restore, pick up/put
>>>>> down.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I don't dispute what you say, but it seems we're already
>>>>> out of his comfort level even dealing with GPT.
>>>>> 
>>>>> My desktop 120GB SSD (Kubuntu 12.04 LTS) looks to be using
>>>>> 27G, 28G free (I sliced it in half.) Certainly my jaw drops
>>>>> every so often as to how fast it is - not having believed
>>>>> stories of SSD speed until I experienced it. So with only
>>>>> 16GB in his system, some playing around would have to be 
>>>>> done, with some bits here, some bits there. Seems beyond
>>>>> the comfort level.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Me, I'd be tempted to run it as /, and mirror it to an
>>>>> equivalent spot on the spindle nightly. But it would take
>>>>> me a while to fiddle with it to my satisfaction. Such
>>>>> fiddling isn't for everyone.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So, if not hibernation, not swap, not /, don't know what
>>>>> else to suggest. (Well, except for as I use the 2nd half of
>>>>> the SSD - when I have a larger, longer project, I'll dump
>>>>> the files there for the duration. But that too in the OPs
>>>>> environment could be considered a large waste.) At least as
>>>>> hibernation, if he hibernates, he's getting what speed he 
>>>>> can.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Certainly SSD as swap seems not recommended, due to
>>>>> premature wear. (Let alone get /tmp and /var/cache off of
>>>>> it, and so on.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 14-01-14 07:23 PM, Bob Jonkman wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Seems a bit of a waste of a high-performance disk to use
>>>>>> it only to save and restore for hibernation...
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 14-01-14 04:26 PM, unsolicited wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Use gdisk for info on the gpt disk.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Good thought on reserving it for hibernation.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 14-01-14 04:02 PM, Chris Craig wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> You'd want to use the mSata drive for hibernation, I
>>>>>>>> presume.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> If you wanted to use it for its intended purpose,
>>>>>>>> maybe look at dm-cache. Here's a document about
>>>>>>>> setting it up: 
>>>>>>>> http://blog.kylemanna.com/linux/2013/06/30/ssd-caching-
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 
using-dmcache-tutorial/
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> .
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> . .
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________ kwlug-disc
>>>>> mailing list kwlug-disc at kwlug.org 
>>>>> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________ kwlug-disc
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
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>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
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