154
Why does Linux have such a terrible sleep? (programming.dev)
submitted 5 days ago by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev
132 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In 8 hours it uses 20% of the battery. When Windows or Mac are put to sleep, the damn things can sleep for a week! This is the case with Linux on multiple laptops.

Is there some kind of manipulation going by ring -1 that detects Linux is running? Is Linux not respecting some procedure and kissing a step?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

No idea if this applies to a lot of laptops, but on my HP with an i5-8350U every Linux distro I've tried seems to come configured using s2idle instead of deep sleep, and battery will drain very quickly even in 'sleep' mode.

If running cat /sys/power/mem_sleep returns "[s2idle] deep" then you can add mem_sleep_default=deep to your kernel args and it will actually go to sleep properly.

On Fedora this was sudo grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="mem_sleep_default=deep" but it varies by distro.

Why it seems like every distro I've used has this set incorrectly I do not know, it's baffling.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Interesting. "s2Idle" sounds like it's idling and wasting cycles when it's supposed to be sleeping. I'll try those commands.

Also perplexing to me that idle is chosen as a default.

[-] Dultas@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Some modern laptops only have s2idle which is garbage. I had to re-enabling hibernate on mine and just use that instead of sleep now.

[-] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago

I did some searching and it sounds like it just wakes up slightly faster, but even in deep sleep it's still very fast.

this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
154 points (94.8% liked)

Linux

15180 readers
278 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Ategon@programming.dev
anzo@programming.dev
dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev