Unable to suspend under Sid

I have a Dell Lattitude CPx5000 with Debian Sid (upgd from Sarge) and kernel 2.6.9. Before I upgraded to Sid, I had kernel 2.4.27 and when I closed the lid/screen of the laptop, it suspended (I think to ram). When I upgraded, the kernel didn't change, but it was re-installed and the install did something to screw up sound + suspend. Upgrading to 2.6.8 fixed sound, but suspend was still broken, so I tried 2.6.9, same problem. I tried running 'apm -s', and it said "no apm support in kernel". I thought all of the debian stock kernels were compiled with apm, but in the apmd package, it said I needed to add an "apm=on" to the kernel options. I added this to the 'kopts' line in /boot/grub/menu.lst and ran update-grub. Still no luck.

Here are the kernel versions available at the boot menu, * means sound works.
2.6.9-1-686 *
2.6.8-1-686 *
2.4.27-1-386

Here are the relevant sections in menu.lst:

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.9-1-686 
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro apm=on 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.9-1-686
savedefault
boot

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.9-1-686 (recovery mode)
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro apm=on single
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.9-1-686
savedefault
boot

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-1-686 
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-1-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro apm=on 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-1-686
savedefault
boot

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-1-686 (recovery mode)
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-1-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro apm=on single
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-1-686
savedefault
boot

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.27-1-386 
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-1-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro apm=on 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
savedefault
boot

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.27-1-386 (recovery mode)
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-1-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro apm=on single
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
savedefault
boot

This has got me stumped, acpid and acpi (installed *after* problems began) are both installed, as are apmd and apm. I'd prefer not to recompile the kernel, but I will if I have to.

you likely have acpi support enabled now. apm *should* be in the debian stock kernel. if it is - boot with the kernel command line option "acpi=off" to go back to apm. however acpi might give you better control about powermanagement - it can do the same as apm ...& more.
pm would be just the same - execpt "acpid" is now responsible for putting your laptop to sleep ("apmd" for apm).

sl mritch.

Did you try:

modprobe apm

Or check to see if the apm module is loaded:

lsmod

apm is built as a module. You may have to add "apm" to /etc/modules to make sure it is loaded at boot time.

I've a Dell Latitude L400 and am running Debian Sarge with 2.6.7. acpi didn't work for me at all, in fact my processor overheated a couple of times! apm works but only once between reboots for some reason! If I try it a second time it hangs.

apm needs RTC support (whatever that is). Check for /dev/rtc or 'lsmod | grep rtc'. I know that your BIOS must be set to 'Suspend to RAM' but beyond that I can't help I'm afraid. Good luck though.

Seb

Using acpi=off works, but I have to 'modprobe apm' once I login. When I do this, the system suspends annd I have to bring it back up, at which time the computer seems to type '~' until I hit backspace. This happens every time I come out of suspend (under kernel 2.6.9), haven't tied under 2.6.8 (about to). Any other ideas?

sometimes apm needs to be started at early boot to work propperly. there is a kernel option "start apm at boot" which has to be selected. should be anyway.
install the apmd(eamon) "ps aux | grep apmd" to see if it's running. maybe tweak apm's configuration in /etc/apm. 2.6.9 has a acpi-rewrite which *should* give you better support - and i wasn't lucky with 2.6.8 in some cases - ymmv.

sl mritch.

It's working better under 2.6.8 (slightly). I think the system needs to modprobe for apm at boot (I think the last posts said that, too). I don't think my laptop supports ACPI very well, but apm works, any ideas on automatically loading the module at boot? My current kernel options are apm=on acpi=off.

put into /etc/modules

# echo "apm" >> /etc/modules

sl mritch.

Thanks, everything seems to be working fine now, 2.6.8 is great!