Re: tlug: Sony VAIO & apm

["Andrew S. Howell" <andy@example.com>]

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew S Howell <andy@example.com> writes:

>>>>> "Scott" == Scott Stone <sstone@example.com> writes:

    Scott> In order to hibernate to disk you need to have a special
    Scott> partition set aside for that.  If you nuked it when
    Scott> installing Linux, I don't think it will hibernate to disk.

    Andrew> Now you've got me curious. On my ThinkPad 760EL, there
    Andrew> does not seem to be a way to hibernate. I looked the the
    Andrew> apm_bios.c and it didn't make mention of hibernating. When
    Andrew> I had NT on it, NT was so brain dead that suspending it
    Andrew> was one of the quickest ways to kill it! :)

    Andrew> So, it hibernating an even lower level bios function than
    Andrew> the APM stuff?...

I'm going to pull a Frank and answer my own post. :) I found a doc on
apmv11 as referenced in apm_bios.c. The important bit is:

Appendix E - OEM Developer Notes for Hibernation

Previously OEM developers had a difficult time implementing
hibernation in an APM 1.0 environment.  They were forced to save the
system state using hidden SCSI partitions or by using an OS specific
file system.  Now, a reserved fixed disk partition with an ID of 84H
has been defined to give developers a better option.  This enables the
creation of a hibernation fixed disk partition which can be used to
avoid file system and OS dependence.  This hibernation partition ID
can be used as either a Primary or Extended partition.  Under normal
conditions, a system utility would create a disk partition which the
APM BIOS would use as storage to save and restore system states.  When
the system is powered on, POST would look at the NVRAM bit to
determine if the system had previously been in the hibernation state.
If this were the case, then the APM BIOS would read the saved system
state back into memory.  Because no specified format for this disk
partition yet exists, the format should contain a special ID sequence
to prove to the APM BIOS that it is in fact APM BIOS data Note that
hibernation is not a requirement of APM, and the process described
here is just a suggestion.  Actual hibernation implementation is up
the individual OEM developers.

So, I wonder if I made a partition of ID 84H, if it would
work... I have a DOS partition, which fdisk says is:

	ID 6, DOS 16-bit >=32M

Anyone know if I can use fips (?) to carve off a 48MB chuck?

Thanks,

	Andy

P.S. Frank, I enjoyed your trouble-shooting self-help on the
weekend. Sorry I couldn't help...
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