Support for Linux

[wilporta]

I work in the IT industry and - like many people - I prefer to have both Windows and UNIX operating systems on a laptop. The Sony Vaio is a very nice laptop, but it there are a number of problems relating to Linux support. The main one which makes the laptop unpleasant to use is that the brightness of the monitor cannot be controlled. The hot keys do not work and there are a number of posts to NVIDIA, who make the GeForce card, Suse and Ubuntu relating to difficulties in getting the brightness control to work. I am surprised that Sony do not work with NVIDIA and Linux groups to resolve this problem. I am sure that a better support for Linux would be cheap to provide and would result in more sales.

There seem to be a number of half-hearted attempts to fix this problem with sonypi and spicctrl (which don't seem to work and which may apparently damage the laptop hardware). This is unsatisfactory.

I would be interested in knowing whether Sony's plans to support Linux better. Can I look forward to a time when I can use my Sony Vaio in Linux without wearing sunglasses?

Surely all that Sony and NVIDIA need to do is to make the interface specifications available to the Linux community so that these people can include the support? And this information must already exist because the brightness control works under other platforms like Windows Vista. What are the problems in making this information more widely available?

I quite understand that Sony recommend that Windows Vista be used as an operating system for the VGN-NR21Z. However, it would be useful if basic support were provided for other common platforms as well.

[margheor]

I haven't had any problems. This could be because I only installed Ubuntu through Wubi. I want to get it running properly before I install it on a dedicated partition. With Wubi everything works fine. Did you get any error messages from Grub?

I'm trying to install Hardy Heron to a 8GB USB drive, I can get all the way through the installation but when I try to boot in it can't find the OS. I can tweak the Grub loader to find it but it won't go further than the login screen. I have fedora running on it but I want to try Ubuntu.

[benste]

I think on Vaios the USB boot ability is disbaled.
But thanks to phihan we've got a great suces.

for all users who have an output for the fn-keys after

acpi_listen

you can use the folowing:

Hi again,  so i figured out you have really conflict with sonypi and sony-laptop and my script was not smart enough to solve that.  So, i have another one for you. [...] Then install /etc/udev/rules.d/59-sony-laptop.rules. That should make symlink and if Xorg is configured properly, it should start to work. 
[...]
I found nice hal quirk, which is easy to do if that keys work. Just enter command to get you exact model number: 
lshal | grep system.hardware.product
  Copy value from quotes and edit this file:
/usr/share/hal/fdi/information/10freedesktop/30-keymap-module-sony-laptop.fdi
There find matching for model numbers and append your model.
$ lshal | grep system.hardware.product  system.hardware.product = 'VGN-FZ210CE'  (string)
 I changed on my notebook:           to:           Your model would be different. There are two lines on my hardy, but they are more or less the same. If you have zoom icon on F10, choose second one, which has also one mapped.  it should map FN+FX keys to its real meaning. If you have support for backlight in gnome-power-manager (hal in other words), that means, you can adjust brightness using battery icon or other panels, this would make brightness control work even without acpi daemon. Well, more useful it is because then keys are remapped to supported symbols and can be used any way you want. xev should report them after reboot or hal restart. But that is useful more for future, now it propably won't work. On my model it does not work.  If that all work, you can use shortcuts menu and map some of keys to action you might use.  Benedict Stein píše v Pá 13. 06. 2008 v 14:42 +0200:

Congratulations for the team starting from sony-laptop module until this tutorial.
Now on minimal the FE series works fine !!!
without sony help:-)

[benste]

I'm not quite shure but this solution seems to be unstabel -
after booting today the keys aren't linked anymore - events are not executed but i can create new ones.

Maybe it's only for the current session.

[sittingpenguin]

And it's a big shame if even windows clean install doesn't work properly 🙂

No joke! after one week poking around the internet, trying every version of the sony utilities out of their ftp site installed in every possible order suggested in different forums, I can confirm that with a (almost) legal copy of Vista SP1 legally activated with the key in the stiker under the laptop, the S1 button will not work!

I should probably go back to the Vista out of the recovery partition and not upgrade to SP1 but what the hell Sony! What I did was perfectly allowed by the activation key that came with the laptop! No support to SP1!? that's ridiculous, the S1 button is no big deal but still...

Anyway my personal installation feels snappy and solid and with all my favourite open source applications installed I can live with it, even if I'd much prefer Linux, which powers my desktop since 5 years; but there it works much better than Windows and it's a joy to use, on the lappy it just feels castrated.

[benste]

Please remember, you're only allowed to use the key with the preinstalled OS.
Why do you think that there is no SP1 Support? you can update SP1 from the normal Vista on a Vaio.

Something you didn't see: Vaio doesn't use spare parts like Dell, Toshiba and others, they're using specific hardware including software. I'm not shure but I think there was a team with over 200 men and women who are working on drivers.

But sadly not on 2nd level drivers like Linux or even XP 🙂

[wilporta]

I am surprised - I did not expect such a large number of people to be interested in getting Linux drivers for Linux. In just a couple of weeks there have been a large number of posts.

I am interested in the previous point from Benste, where he thinks that there is a large number of people at Sony working away to produce drivers. It seems that they only have time to support one version of Vista. I wonder why Sony do not make the details of the hardware available so that the open source community would have the information they need to write the drivers themselves. It seems strange that Sony insists on being a bottle-neck.

I am still looking forward to a comment / reply from Sony...

[sittingpenguin]

Benste, for Microsoft it does not matter what DVD you use to install Vista, as long as you own a key: you can even download a copy off of MSN, or they can send you one home for a few Euro. Apparently that is not the case for Sony, that impose more limits to the customer than MS.

I thought it was SP1 that broke the driver for the programmable button, apparently I was wrong. I wonder what do they tweak in Vista to make their hardware work, just out of curiosity.

In any case now I know that this thing is more to be considered a device like a smartphone or an mp3 player rather than a real computer, which pretty much condemns it to Ebay... 🙂

[benste]

@ Wiliam,
I'm sorry, I didn't welcome you AR51J, no updates available for the WLAN for this specific model.
It was no suprise for me that there are several users posting for linux, there are already many other communitys with vaio and linux problems, the only important thing is that you started a thread which is on a sony forum and sony which sony cares about 🙂 thx a lot

Sony Brussels (Europe) told me that they're currently creating a official statement, but they don't tell yet and maybe it's "we don't support 3rd level OS"

[ViNS32]

I bought a Sony Vaio VGN-FZ11S 1 year ago.
Still struggling with the brightness issue under linux (I tried with several distro, same problems).

Are there any news regarding this problem? How could this be fixed?

Thanks,

V.

[benste]

with the restricted driver from nvidia, you should be able to use nvclock --> smartdimmer to dim your geforce card.
BUt I'm not shure - there are some issues with the 8 series cards.