Lid hibernate not working

Hi :)

Please can you copy&paste the output of

free -m

into us here? Errr, to get to a command-line try
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal#Starting%20a%20Terminal
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi Tom,

As requested -

             total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 496 440 55 0 13 228
-/+ buffers/cache: 198 297
Swap: 1451 13 1437

Thanks

             total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 496 440 55 0 13 228
-/+ buffers/cache: 198 297
Swap: 1451 13 1437

Pasted it again.

Hi :)

Yes, i should have mentioned not to worry about the formatting. Launchpad stuffs up the formatting so i have become fairly used to finding what i need without it being neatly arranged! In this case i was just making sure the 1st number for swap > 1st number for "Mem". SInce

1451 > 496

it is not the issue that usually causes this problem. Sadly it's more annoying than that. I think the problem is that the machine does not have enough Ram (=Mem) to run Ubuntu very well and so you are probably getting all sorts of minor errors. Ubuntu really needs over 1Gb of Ram for a normal install although it is possible for very experienced linux users to do a "minimal install" so that it can work in a lot less.

My guess is that it is a laptop? If so then buying ram can be quite fiddly as it can be quite fussy. The mbord probably has a limit on how much ram it can have. The ram will need to be the exact right speed although the current ram will probably have it's speed printed on the ram-sticks. When buying ram its the initial outlay that is the most money so buying 2x1Gb sticks is not much more than 2x256Mb. As i said tho, check the limits of the mbord which is probably quoted in the laptop's specs.

Alternatively it might be worth switching to a different version of linux. Xubuntu is still too heavy for this machine but Lubuntu might be worth trying
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix

Most distros are a lot less heavy on ram than Ubuntu so it's worth just having a look around
http://distrowatch.com
to see if something else looks interesting or worth exploring. I am a bit rusty about which are good in fairly low ram machines but i would try LiveCds of sliTaz, openSUSE, PcLinuxOS and perhaps a couple of others before committing to a dual-boot install. This is useful for keeping your existing Ubuntu working while you explore and learn the 'new' one. They all work very much the same so anything you learn with one helps you make sense of the others fairly quickly. If you don't already have a separate partition for /home then we can help you sort that to make it easier to try other distros as they can all share the same /home which keeps all your data & settings fairly safe and minimises the hard-drive space the other distros need while you try them out.

Please let us know which option you are considering for the short-term so we can try to help you better with that.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your indepth reply.

If the RAM is the issue it's a shame and somewhat frustrating, the laptop is a few years old now and is certainly due a RAM upgrade but the frustrating thing is this has been OK with WinXP and it would have been nice for it to work smoothly with Ubuntu as I do really like Ubuntu but will look at the other options you mentioned.

One thing though, do you think it would help if I were to unload the display module etc. before it hibernates. As said before if I hit the hibernate button it will hibernate and resume (Wake) with no problems, it's only if I do the 'closing lid' hibernate option that the cursor locks on a black screen. Furthermore, I have just tried the Suspend button and that just locks/crashes on my desktop, so do you think a script may help...I have read issues with nVidia video cards etc.

Thanks.

Hi :)

I missed your point about it working one way but not another. Yes, if it does work one way then i guess your ram is fine. Also Xp working well on the machine is a good indication of ram being fine.

Perhaps now is a good time to re-post this question in
http://www.linuxquestions.org
to see if they have suggestions about scripting it and just wait to see if anyone else gets involved in this thread.

Launchpad doesn't have a good way of dealing with questions that are more than a couple of days old so it can sometimes be useful to re-post the question
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion
to see if you manage to catch some different people's interest next time. So i think post in linuxquestions now and then in about a day or so re-post in here.

Ahah, i just found an excellent answer from Sam
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+question/110319
His links are usually very informative and helpful. I haven't had time to check these yet

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)