Hibernation on Linux Mint 22

Updated 14 December 2025

Linux Mint, out of the box, doesn't support hibernation. Hibernation writes a lot of data to the system drive. It's an issue with solid-state drives, but not hard disk drives. With solid-state drives, it reduces the lifespan significantly if hibernation is used frequently.

If you're running your operating system on an external solid-state drive, or on a desktop computer, it's usually easy to replace the drive. It's much more difficult on most laptops.

I sometimes do things just to see if I can. Such is the case with hibernation. Once I verified that it worked, I didn't use it anymore. I probably won't ever use it again.

I followed the instructions here: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=425394

There's a script on the page following "Script: setup-hibernate.sh". Delete the swap file in the root directory and the reference in /etc/fstab before running the script, which is the script name followed by the amount of space for the swap file. The amount of swap space should be the same as your installed memory.

If I install zram, the zram swap space will be used for normal swapping without touching the swap file. This is easy to verify by using the command swapon at the terminal. Hibernation uses only the swap file.

Suspend and Hybrid Sleep

Suspend saves the current state to RAM (and turns off a lit power button). Hybrid sleep does that and hibernates at the same time. Hybrid sleep restores from suspend unless the power is cut in some way, like a power outage with a desktop computer, or an expended battery with a laptop.

I allow my computer to suspend, using power management settings, even when calling it quits for the night. That's a lot better than what I used to do, which was to leave both my computer and monitor (or laptop) on for 24 hours a day. If my computer can't resume from suspend, I don't have anything important enough going on to worry about if the open applications are closed unexpectedly.

Disable Hibernation in the Power Menu

If "Hibernate" is in the power menu, whether you have it set up or not, you can disable it there with: sudo systemctl mask hibernate.target

To enable or reenable it: sudo systemctl unmask hibernate.target