How to set up suspend-then-hibernate on a KDE Neon Laptop

suspend-then-hibernate is a neat feature in systemd that allows a computer to suspend (aka sleep) for a period of time, then wake up, and hibernate.

To configure this required a few steps on KDE Neon, though:

Configure Hibernate

To configure hibernate, you need to have a swap partition that is as large as your system’s memory. It’s best to have it on a separate partition, not a swapfile, as it’s much easier to configure that way. Here’s my setup:

free -m # this will show you free memory

You need to make sure the partition auto-mounts as swap (add to /etc/fstab), then also need to add a resume parameter to the kernel parameters in the /etc/default/grub file.

lsblk | grep -i swap  # list block devices, and search for lines with the word "swap"

blkid /dev/<swap partition>  # get the UUID of the swap partition

grep <uuid> /etc/fstab  # This will find the line to mount the swap automatically

grep <uuid> /etc/default/grub  # This will find the line to add the "resume=" kernel parameter

Once this is reconfigured, you also need to rebuild the initramfs and grub config:

sudo update-grub
sudo update-initramfs -k all -c

Then, reboot, and make sure the swap is mounted (you can use the swapon command to see). Once confirmed, use the command sudo systemctl hibernate to test hiberation and restoring from hibernation.

Enable hibernation in Ubuntu / KDE Neon

In KDE Neon, hibernation is disabled by default using polkit. To enable it, comment out the lines in this file, needs to be edited with sudo like this:
sudo vim /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla
(found at https://phabricator.kde.org/D16425)

[Disable hibernate by default in upower]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.upower.hibernate
#ResultActive=no  # commented this line

[Disable hibernate by default in logind]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate;org.freedesktop.login1.handle-hibernate-key;org.freedesktop.login1;org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate-multiple-sessions;org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate-ignore-inhibit
#ResultActive=no  # commented this line

Reboot, and check that you have a “Hibernate” button in the menu. Test it works.

Edit sudo vim /etc/systemd/sleep.conf and uncomment the line “HibernateDelaySec=…” and set to a value you want. For testing I use 1m, otherwise something like 45m is good.

Then, go into system settings to the “Energy Saving” section, and look for the option “While asleep, hibernate after a period of inactivity” and turn it on: