TuxOnIce is most easily described as the Linux equivalent of Windows' hibernate functionality, but better. It saves the contents of memory to disk and powers down. When the computer is started up again, it reloads the contents and the user can continue from where they left off. No documents need to be reloaded or applications reopened and the process is much faster than a normal shutdown and start up.

TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 now available!

TuxOnIce has a long feature list, including the ability to cancel hibernating or resuming by pressing Escape, image compression to save time and space, a versatile plugin architecture, support for machines with Highmem, preemption and SMP.

The TuxOnIce website (this one) and mailing list provide support for dealing with issues arising. An IRC channel #tux-on-ice has been created on irc.freenode.net, where people may be able to help you with problems.

The primary author of TuxOnIce is Nigel Cunningham. A huge thanks must also go to Bernard Blackham, Florent Chabaud, Pavel Machek, Gabor Kuti and Michael Frank along with many others who have tested and contributed to the development of TuxOnIce.

Current Versions

• TuxOnIce
• Git Trees:
You can find up-to-the-minute git trees for a variety of kernel versions (recent stable, and current git) at git.kernel.org and kernel.ubuntu.com/git.


• Latest stable version: 3.0.1
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel 2.6.24
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel 2.6.25
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel 2.6.26
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel 2.6.27
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel 2.6.28
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel 2.6.29
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel ubuntu-hardy
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel ubuntu-intrepid
• TuxOnIce 3.0.1 for kernel ubuntu-jaunty


• Latest development version: 3.0.99.48
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel 2.6.28
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel 2.6.29
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel 2.6.30
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel 2.6.31
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel 2.6.32
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel ubuntu-jaunty
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel ubuntu-karmic
• TuxOnIce 3.0.99.48 for kernel head


• Older patches
Patches against older kernels are available from the Older Downloads section. These are generally unsupported though, and the archives are the best reference if you plan to use these. For really old work, you can consult the SourceForge archives but again be warned that nobody will be likely to help you.


• UserUI (Userspace user interface)
Current release: 1.0 [tar.gz] (What is TuxOnIce-UserUI?)


• Hibernate script
Current release: 2.0 [tar.gz]

Latest News

Another new release is ready. This version adds support for versioning of the image header, which will make hiberating with one kernel and resuming with another more reliable. It also readds LZF support, at least temporarily, while we are working to finally determine the cause of occasional issues with decompression. If you have issues with the new UUID support, this version makes debugging them easier, because it adds a new boot time parameter uuid_debug=1, which can be used to enable debuggin code on the fly. The release also includes changes to the way in which we find where to load the first part of the image when resuming, which will result in a noticable improvement in this step on machines with large amounts of memory. For text mode userui users, there is also now an estimate of the remaining time (for both hibernating and resuming). Finally, there is initial support for checking mount times as a means of avoiding file system corruption when a user boots a different kernel between hibernating and resuming (ext filesystems only at this stage). May it serve you well.

A new release is ready for download. This version fixes issues with hibernating to logical volumes. With this version, if your system has a swap partition, you should no longer need to provide a resume= parameter on the command line. TuxOnIce will automatically set the resume= parameter to the first swap partition it finds, unless it finds an image header on another swap partition (in which can it will resume using that partition's information). This applies even if you only use file based storage, because the block that resume= points to is ONLY used to tell us where to find the start of the image proper. This swap device doesn't even have to be swapon'd when you start to hibernate for this functionality to work correctly.

Please report any problems with 3.0.99.44 on the TuxOnIce mailing lists. Nigel hopes to do a 3.1 release in the near future, and would love to get bugs squashed beforehand!

TuxOnIce 3.0.99.41 has been released. This is a new test release as we prepare for 3.1. This release addresses all bugs found since last week's 3.0.99.32 release.

TuxOnIce 3.0.99.32 has been released. This is a test release as we prepare for 3.1. It adds support for UUIDs, and includes a big rework of the lowlevel I/O code to clean things up and let you use swap and a file together (treat a file as a fallback for swap or viceversa). The UUID support brings us one step closer to having our Ubuntu PPA installation be as simple as apt-get install and reboot!

Looking to use TuxOnIce on your new Karmic installation? Just add the TuxOnIce PPA (ppa:tuxonice/ppa) and you'll be in business in no time. No compilation required! Jaunty and Intrepid PPAs are also being regularly updated.

Until 3.0.2 comes out, patches for newer kernels can be found on the All Downloads page.

Looking for an easy way to install TuxOnIce on Ubuntu Intrepid or Jaunty releases? Try our new PPA!

This release fixes some problems with the allocation of storage for the image header in 3.0. It also fixes longstanding issues that prevented us from being able to use the LZO and deflate cryptoapi algorithms. Since LZO is now usable in 2.6.25 and later kernels, LZF support has been removed from these patches and LZO made the default.

New major releases of TuxOnIce, the hibernate script and the TuxOnIce userspace user interface ('userui') were released today. TuxOnIce author Nigel Cunningham described the new releases as "a significant step forward in Linux Power Management".

Hibernation is a small but significant part of the Linux experience. There is a lot of emphasis being placed on reducing the boot time of Linux at the moment. Reducing hibernation time is equally important, because hibernation adds the element of state persistance that fresh boots lack, without the reliance on the battery that suspend to ram implies. This new TuxOnIce release contributes significantly to the usefulness of hibernation by introducing multithreaded I/O, meaning significantly faster hibernation and restoration times on today's multithreaded systems, and especially on newer SSD drives.

TuxOnIce 3.0 arrives on the scene more than 3 years after the 2.2 release. The long development cycle has mainly been due to the fact that TuxOnIce is now very much a 'spare time' project, but also to the fact that it had already obtained a high degree of reliability and usability.