should let users enable or disable suspend and hibernate

The bug correspond to https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-p-control-center-cleanup

"[mterry] change the power capplet to add checkboxes to enable,disable suspend and hibernate (2.3):"

This got postponed for precise, so removing the precise target.

You also need to co-ordinate with all the other GUI's like KDE that ship either with Ubuntu or as official spins to get them to either ship with /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/com.ubuntu.enable-hibernate.pkla in place or add a special button to their GUI just for Ubuntu.

How viable is for Ubuntu to create a package available in Software Center that patches gnome's GUI and/or polkit (whatever is required) to re-enable hibernation?

I think the best method is to just use pm-suspend-hybrid:
the system is fast to resume if you wake it up within 15 minutes again, but suspends to disk after this and saves all the energy which Suspend To RAM would still use.
If your system supports it, you can easily make "suspend" behave as "suspend-to-disk":
http://daniel.hahler.de/use-hybrid-suspend-method-by-default

Hybrid-suspend is the process where the system does everything it needs to hibernate, suspends instead of shutting down. This means that your computer can wake up quicker than for normal hibernation if you do not run out of power, and you can resume even if you run out of power. s2both is an hybrid-suspend implementation.

*Pay attention to the wording, that it does everything that it needs to hibernate, but suspends instead of shuts down. If the computer runs out of power, nothing is lost as it's also been saved to disk, not just in ram.

Ubuntu should use only one suspend method: the hybrid suspend method.

> Ubuntu should use only one suspend method: the hybrid suspend method.
+1

Well, it probably still takes a lot of time to shut down, as the whole RAM must be written to disk. This is getting worse as the amount of RAM increases, but it helps that the hard drives/SSDs are getting faster. I don't want to wait a long time between I press the suspend button and the time it is save to pack down the laptop. Bootup will be as fast as suspend though.

The mode could make sense for laptops, but maybe less for desktops with a stable power supply.

@eaglescreen, @taaroa; +10 re. the hybrid suspend method ;-)

Ideally when the user presses the power down button we should both suspend and hibernate the computer at the same time. If the computer is then resumed while battery power is remaining, it should be un-suspended and the hibernate image discarded. If the battery goes below a set point, the suspend state would be discarded, and when the computer is next switched on it would then be un-hibernated.

Would anybody be interested in taking this on as a project? It is a lot of work, but it would be great to see this in Ubuntu. To add this feature somebody needs to step forward and take on this project. I proposed this idea at UDS-O in Budapest, however there was nobody available to take up this project, and that is still the case today. Any volunteers? ;-)

@John: hybrid suspend is already implemented in PowerManager, see pm-suspend-hybrid(8). So the "lot of work" would consist just in changing the action triggered when pressing the Suspend button.