Re: APM and Suspend on IBM Thinkpad

[Graeme Mathieson <graeme+usenet@mathie.cx>]

Hi,

"William McKee" <william@knowmad.com> writes:

>  1) when I try to suspend the laptop by closing the case or using 
> 'apm -s', nothing happens. Using the command, I get an error message
>  'Cannot open APM device: Permission denied'
> However, I am able to start apm and have it notice AC off-line/on-line
> events. Could someone explain the meaning of this error?

Are you running `apm` as an ordinary user?  If you want to be able to
do this, you'll need to change the permissions on /dev/apm_bios.  Probably,
you're best bet is to add a group called 'apm' and do:

chgrp apm /dev/apm_bios
chmod g+rw /dev/apm_bios

And add yourself (and any other user that you want to be able to suspend
the laptop) to the 'apm' group.  Alternatively, if you want anybody to
be able to suspend the laptop, do `chmod a+rw /dev/apm_bios`.

>  2) I am trying to understand the SystemV boot/shutdown sequences 
> but coming from the DOS/Win* world am having some difficulties. Could
> someone give me a good technical reference article or FAQ about how 
> this all works?

There's a little in /usr/doc/sysvinit.  Can't see anything else offhand,
though there must be something in one of the howtos or a decent book
on Linux...

-- 
Graeme.
graeme+sig@mathie.cx

"Life's not fair," I reply. "But the root password helps." - BOFH