How to hibernate my laptop?

So after the theft of my brand new Macbook occurred on September 7th 2006, and after I waited for two full months for the police to give up and report it "lost", I have finally returned to the GNU/Linux platform, though not by choice. I am still paying, with interest, for the laptop that was stolen from me, while using a laptop that neither has the power nor the features of the one I purchased.

Regardless, I am using a dinky Toshiba running CentOS 4 and I cannot even get it to hibernate when I close the lid - something the Macbook did by default. I have tried everything I know how, from disabling apm and enabling acpi to messing with the /proc structure and even trying to write my own tools, though to no avail.

Is there anyone who can help me setup hibernate and suspend functionality for this laptop? I think it should be possible to achieve without resorting to something as ugly as a kernel recompile.

The more GNU/Linux I use the more I am starting to appreciate just how much work went into the making of Mac OS X what it is. Everything was so intuitive and flawless with my Macbook, why isn't it like that with GNU/Linux? Why must something as simple as playing an MP3 file require either a recompile or a thorough understaneding of patents that resulted in XMMS not including an MP3 codec by default? Why can't they find the person who stole my laptop from a closed-circuit camera surveillanced mall located at 2300 Yonge Street?

Just help me setup this laptop, someone, anyone?