1. Introduction

Arguing about sleep nomenclature is often very emotional between people with different views. Windows and Mac OSX have decided on names for the actions and it's about time Linux did the same. We are hurting the user experience with ad-hoc and confusing policies about naming.

Full specification can be found here.

1.1. International Names

Please list locale and the names. Please don't add comments to the table if you disagree, please add them at the end of the table and we can discuss over email:

1.1.1. Suggestions / Disagreements

* here...

1.2. Todo

Projects that need convincing:

• klaptop & kpowersave

• hotkey-setup (ubuntu) (LP:#43202)

  • hotkey-setup just does remapping based on the linux/input.h names for these keys; fix the kernel and this will be automatically rebuilt... -PaulSladen

Project that agree to "Do the right thing":

• Ubuntu (discussion)

• Redhat (#190791)

• Xandros Desktop (Ticket #81656)
• GNOME Power Manager
• HAL (the method names)
• GNOME (the toolbar)
• pm-utils

2. Comments on this page

• I don't think that "thaw" is a good word, I think it's perfectly reasonable to use one word for waking up from both suspend and hibernate: RESUME would work nicely with both -- MatthewEast

Agreed: I've added this as a note above, thanks -- RichardHughes

MatthewPaulThomas:

• I think the only useful way to decide this is to do a street survey -- one question to find out what people will look for when they want each mode, and another to find out whether people will understand the terms juxtaposed. For each person, (1) randomly choose one of the possible terms for any of the modes (Halt, Hibernate, Park, Pause, Safe Sleep, Sleep, Stand By, Stop, Suspend), and ask: "what do you think should happen if you clicked Name of Item on the main menu for a computer system?". Then (2) describe a mode they haven't described, and ask "what would you expect a mode like that to be called?". (If they suggest unprecedented terms, add them to the list for the rest of the sample, scaling up the results as appropriate.) Anything less than a proper survey is just geeks arguing on the Internet. For example:

• "Sleep is a BAD word as it does not convey time"? But neither does Suspend!

• ... But even with the best terminology as found by such a survey, I predict the level of understanding would remain low until two of the three modes (suspend-to-RAM, suspend-to-disk, and off) are merged. They're just too similar.

  • AndrewSobala: They're not, though. Suspend-to-RAM is very fast and eats your battery. Suspend-to-disk takes a reasonable amount of time and your computer can sit in it for weeks. Off is the only really safe one, but takes the longest. Users can and do notice the time difference - and regardless, merging any of these would be dangerous given the different effects they have on your battery life.

DavydMadeley:

• I quite like Suspend/Resume and Hibernate/Resume. In both cases, the reverse action for the user is the same. If we need to give more detail we have "Resuming from Suspend" and "Resuming from Hibernation". This is also consistant with the language used in a lot of other places, but may cause confusion with things like swsuspend2.
• I think once we have consistancy people will work out what is happening. From there we have good documentation that explains what each state does, what are the advantages and disadvantages and what other OSes call it:

  • eg: On Apple's, Suspend is known as Sleep and Hibernate is known as SureSleep (I think)

QuentinHartman:

• The colloquialisms that have arisen at my place of employment are "sleep"(suspend to RAM) and "deep sleep" (suspend to disk). Both of them are reversed by "waking up" as far as the user is concerned. Internally, they could be "wake" and "deepwake".

ConstantineEvans:

• I don't think that considering previous usage as the biggest factor in choosing the terms is a good idea. No matter what is chosen, it will be confusing to many users of previous systems. I believe the best strategy here would be to choose names based entirely on their meaning and connotation, and have good documentation to explain the differences. Sleep/Wake and Hibernate/Wake seems best to me in this regard. The original terms are well known, adequately connote the differences in speed and resource usage, and are actually in the same class of actions, unlike Suspend and Hibernate. I don't understand why sleep wouldn't be thought to convey time, while suspend would.

AndreRuediger:

• I think the default way to do things should be to let the computer (g-p-m/hal) decide what to do. In most cases it's preferred to suspend to disk if the computer is on battery cause it saves power. When on AC suspend to RAM is OK because it's faster. I think the user should not be forced to decide between suspend to disk/ram/(other terms see MPT's comment) cause many don't even know the differences between them. I often just close the lid of my laptop when I want it to have a break. So I would prefer that it decides what to do (battery -> to RAM, AC -> to disk). The optimal behaviour would be to to change from RAM to disk when I pull the AC plug in suspended mode. So we only have to agree on one term that the user has to remember. I don't care if it's sleep/suspend/stand by/have a break/... Or are there situations when an other behaviour is better? Then that should be configurable. Internally we should stick with the terms suspend2disk/ram/whatever since it describes exactly what it does. -- AndreRuediger

  • - No, the same name should be used internally as externally as this is what caused the crazy naming we have now (see the ubuntu example at the top of the page). To have one name for an action for developers and one for users is crazy. -- RichardHughes

    • - Just to clarify: I meant one name to show to users (e.g. suspend) which would automagically trigger the right action behind the scene and special names for developers (e.g. suspend to disk and suspend to ram). I think users just care less than developers. -- AndreRuediger

DavidPlanella:

• What about "Sleep"? This term is not described specifically on the specification linked to at the top of the page, yet it is used in gnome-power-manager as a catch-all action for "Suspend" or "Hibernate" depending on the case. Should this use of "Sleep" not be documented? Should we add an additional "Sleep" column to the table of translations?