Thank you for the link.
It looks like I'm getting suspend and hibernate mixed up.
Hibernate seems to be a function which allows me to then boot up a new OS. After that, once the new OS is shutdown, I can revert back to the hibernated OS. Is that correct?

I'm not sure what the advantage of hibernate is.

When it doesn't recover properly from hibernate this is often a graphics card driver problem. On my parents in law's laptop I had to install the proprietary nvidia driver (as opposed to using nouveau) to get this to work properly.
Maybe you can find anything useful in the system logs?

Oh man, not the dreaded 'driver problem'.
I have a radeon rs880/4200 hdmi sound card which gave me trouble and which I eventually fixed.

I think I have an integrated graphics and can't tell which one it is from 'lspci' command.
I'm wondering if I need to install some graphics drivers from the debian repos.

Where can I access the system logs, please?
Also, what is hibernate? On Win7 hibernate is the same as 'suspend' on linux.

The system logs are typically located under /var/log. Look expecially in /var/log/messages and /var/log/dmesg.
The latter can also be viewed by just typing Note they are typically rolled, so you can access older logs by e.g. looking at messages.1 instead of messages etc...

The difference between suspend and hibernate is explained e.g. here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._and_hibernate
I have had more success with suspend in the past.

1 members found this post helpful.

I think you are saying that you have to press the power button to bring it back up, and you see the power-on self test and grub. Does it then return to the state it was in prior to hibernation? If so, that is good. That is normal hibernation behavior.
Hibernation is the same as shutdown, in that it involves the same level of hardware shutdown. The keyboard and mouse will be unresponsive. Upon power-up, it will go through power-on self test and grub. The difference is that hibernation stores the state of the system to disk prior to shutting down, and recovers the state of the system the next time that OS boots.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks. I did 'dmesg' and amongst the long list, I noticed something about not being able to create an image for hibernate.
I'll probably have to look into this more.

This has been especially useful. The Arch linux documentation is far superior to any of the crap you read on debian info sites.

It turns out you need to configure your bootloader to access the swap file and restore to your previous state.
Well I've done that but still get no proper restore using hibernate.
It looks like the image is not being written correctly to the swap file when I hibernate, or I need to refine the command I've put into GRUB bootloader.
Either way, I've got more troubleshooting to do, and hibernate is not so simple to achieve!

Well, that's a nice function.
On Windows7, the OS will automatically suspend to RAM after a period of inactivity. You can choose how long that inactivity should be.
Then, the OS will automatically hibernate to disk if there is a longer period of inactivity after suspension.

You can see how clever and convenient that is.
With debian, you have to manually configure hibernate - which can be problematic, as I'm finding out.
To automate suspend and hibernate, you will probably then have to write a clever shell script to do this. And if you're not a unix programmer, then prepare for disappointment.

Linux OSs are ok, but they're still in their infancy.
In 10 years time, I'll be able to do all this with a simple apt-get install command.
But 10 years is a long time!

Understand your frustration, but note that part of the problems you are having is most likely caused by the fact that you are using hardware from companies which do not provide the same level of support for Linux as they do for Windows.
If you are buying hardware that you want to use with Linux, make sure to pick hardware from vendors who have decent support for open source systems and you'll be ok.
Also note that you are comparing apples with pies when you compare Debian with Windows.
Windows has a policy that puts "protecting the user from doing stupid things" as its top priority. Not sure what made you choose using Linux over Windows in the first place, but if you want to have something similar to this you might be better off with a distro like Ubuntu or Mint. In many cases, this will make it a lot easier to e.g. install proprietary graphics drivers. (On my parents in law's laptop that I mentioned earlier it was as easy as going to menu->driver management-> pick the recommended graphics driver and say "ok". It was working for a while and then - bang - I had the nvidia stuff installed).

Debian is not geared towards the typical windows user. It holds your hand less and - as a result - is less bloated with fancy gui tools that obscure what's under the hood. The advanced Linux user appreciates the additional control he has over the system.

Personally, I gotta say that everytime I am forced to use Windows I am thinking "it's still in its infancy when it comes to customization and clever shell scripts to automate tasks". However, I have no hope that it will be any better in 10 years from now :-)

QFT -- have you ever tried a Windows installation from scratch that hasn't been set up by your laptop vendor with all the correct drivers?

Mint is waaaay easier than Windows in this respect.

Looking on the bright side, your clever script could put the computer to sleep on your own terms. You can define activity or inactivity any way you like. For example, you could program it to defer sleep if the administrator is logged in, or the shared printer is attached, or an automated backup happens to be running.

You are right, you have to be a programmer to make this happen.