They really don't. Suspend doesn't always wake up all devices, different kernel releases break hibernate completely. Also Ubuntu just disabled hibernate for a v

They really don't. Suspend doesn't always wake up all devices, different kernel releases break hibernate completely. Also Ubuntu just disabled hibernate for a vast chunk of time. It's never worked properly. And don't get me started on all the playing around you have to do with powertop to get usable battery life. And that is Ubuntu (12.04 LTS) noob friendly edition on standard Intel Centrino hardware.