You can implement it through many system bioses, and there's something
called software suspend. But how well it works will depend on your
hardware (I've had hit and miss experiences with it).

Rich Gibbs wrote:

> it said the following, on 09/26/04 11:47:
>> How to configure the system to hibernate after a specified inactivity
>> period (the same behavior as in Windows with setting "System
>> hibernates" time inside Control Panel / Power options)?
>
> Yes, in general you can do this. How you do it is dependent on which
> Linux distro / version you are using, and on your hardware. Many
> recent
> distros have tools that make setting it up pretty simple. (KDE has a
> "power control" tab in the Control Center app, for example.)
>
> Your machine will need to support either APM or APCI, and you'll need
> the kernel modules that support those facilities (which you may have
> already).
>

--
Daniel Boline
Dept of Physics, Boston University