Is there any reason for this design choice?

IrisFeeling

Hi,

I figured out that when you close the lid on NetBSD 10.0/amd64, the laptop doesn't go into sleep mode (ACPI sleep state 3), but instead just turns out the backlight by setting it to 0. To me there seems to be no downside to putting the computer to sleep instead, but I assume there is a good reason. I changed my the script on my machine to do that instead and it works perfectly fine.
Here is a diff if you want to try it out:
/etc/powerd/scripts/lid_switch

17c17
< 	wsconsctl -d -w backlight=0 >/dev/null
---
> 	/sbin/sysctl -w hw.acpi.sleep.state=3
22c22
< 	wsconsctl -d -w backlight=1 >/dev/null
---
> 	/sbin/sysctl -w hw.acpi.sleep.state=0

Do any of you know why this was done this way? What advantage does it have?

bsduck

I personally wouldn't want a laptop to go to sleep automatically when closing the lid. Sometimes you want to let the computer work without a need to interact with it (for example it may be compiling code, recording audio...) and also want to protect it from external threats (like a cat) when you aren't nearby.

nia

Suspend bugs are common on consumer-grade hardware and it's a bad look if the system never wakes up after closing the lid.

oui

Glad to see someone asking questions about design choices of the OS!
I agree with @bsduck. In my case I often need my computer to work/compile overnight.

kc9udx

I have a couple of Pinebooks Pro running NetBSD. My wife has one running Manjaru GNU/Linux. Every time I have to do maintenance on that thing, I get frustrated by the fact that when I shut the lid, it turns off. I'm more than capable of pushing the power button if I wanted it turned off! 🙂