[mythtv-users] Howto Standby

[Leighton Brough]

Phill Edwards wrote:
>> But I don't want my HTPC to be on all the time. It should just be in standby when I don't use it and then power up, when it have to record or when I push any button on my keyboard.
>>     
>
> I think you have to get a special version of the kernel with all the
> suspend stuff in it. There is a version available on ATrpms but you
> don't say whether you're instalkling from source or which distro
> you're on etc so I don't know whether that will help.
>
>   
There's several different flavours of "suspend" (e.g. 
http://www.suspend2.net/) which provide the equivalent of hibernate 
functionality under Windows (i.e. suspend-to-disk). Like Phil says 
above, I'm not sure if any of these are available in the standard 
kernels, at least suspend2 which seems the most mature, is not yet. 
There's some info on the Wiki about this: 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Software_Suspend

There is also the option of suspend-to-ram using ACPI 
(http://acpi.sourceforge.net/documentation/sleep.html), which I'm using 
successfully. This is part of the standard kernel now. To make your 
system suspend to ram, you need to issue this command:

echo mem > /sys/power/state

It's also a lot faster than suspend-to-disk.

To make your system wakeup at the right time to record, check out: 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ACPI_Wakeup

Making this work will probably require some experimentation, to say the 
least, and exactly what else you'll need to do depends very much on your 
particular hardware and software config. You need a reasonably 
up-to-date kernel. I've had the best results so far with 2.6.18.1 
(2.6.18.2 is crashes sometimes on resume for me). You will typically 
have to stop various daemons an unload various modules before the 
suspend for it and the resume to work correctly. You may also have to 
change some BIOS settings. I don't think there is a single recipe that 
will work for everyone.

There is also nvram-wakeup, which is another approach: 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Shutdown_Wakeup

Leighton