I recently purchased a Sony GRX 570 with the specific purpose of running Linux as the only native operating system on the box. This page documents my experiences loading Redhat 7.3 on a Sony Vaio GRX570.
Feel free to contact me with questions. tedAT-NO-SPAM-PLEASEserreyn.com
GOOD NEWS!!! I have no non-working devices at this time.
The initial install went surprisingly smooth. I used the Redhat 7.2 CDs downloaded off the internet. Booted the CD and began the install process. Partitioned small 40 meg /boot partition of type ext2, 1 gig SWAP space, and the rest in one large partition.
The radeon card was identified as a generic radeon. I did a complete install.
I updated the redhat packages to the most current using my local patch site.
I installed Ximian Gnome desktop to give myself a good desktop.
My first attempt at getting the DVD player to work was with xine. The video would play, but the sound would be extremely choppy. Later, I was able to successfully play DVDs by getting ogle (download all RPMS here and install).
I attempted to both use the ACPI with Version 2.4.18 kernel and install the ACPI patch from sourceforge. If I do activate it, I lock up hard upon startup of the usb modules. I am currently using the version 20020517 version of the patch on kernel version 2.4.18. Here is the link at sourceforge for the ACPI patches. http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=36832.
Update. I can now use the 2002050 if I apply the derivepanic.acpi.diff patch. USB storage still does not work. Keep an eye on this web page for additional ACPI patches http://www.brodo.de/english/pub/acpi/index.html.
It may be possible to get something working with the Software Suspend code, see http://falcon.sch.bme.hu/~seasons/linux/swsusp.html.
Update 5/16/2002. I can now manually throttle my CPU speed in order to save some battery life. Standby for document to show how to do this.
Update 6/16/2002. The usb-stage problem is a problem with the magic gate memory stick driver. You can fix it by installing the memstick patch at the bottom of this page. I can suspend and resume by doing a "echo -n 4 >/proc/acpi/sleep". This only appears to work from a console mode and may require restarting some services like cardmgr. I am looking into doing some custom inittabs to do this (maybe 8 and 9) for suspend box and resume box.
I choose NOT to run the kernel version of the pcmcia-cs package, but instead use my own from David hinds vesion 3.1.33. I have a D-Link wireless network with access point DWL-1000 and cards DWL-650. I have installed the linux-wlan-ng-0.1.13 files and the card now works. I have separate wlan-ng.opts files for each wireless network that I join. I have also gotten the AP mode to work with my card turning my laptop into a wireless sniffer.
I have gotten the sony jogdial to work. I have also installed s-jog to use the scroll mouse and to pop up some useful utilities like vmware, ogle, xmms, evolution, netup and netdown scripts. http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=24012
I have had some success getting usb to work. If I boot with usb enabled in the kernel, it locks the machine hard loading usb-uhci? (this may be when loading the usb-stoage to talk to the magicgate port?) I have been booting with the nousb kernel option, then hand-loading the usb modules.
Update 5/10/2002. Ok lockups only happen when loading the usb-storage module with the ACPI patches. If I boot with a non-ACPI kernel, I can load USB and things work as expected.
Update 5/16/2002. I know have external mouse and internal one working at the same time! Wireless microsoft Intelliexplorer works great! USB working with 2.4.18 without patches, adding ACPI makes usb-storage lock when trying to use USB floppy.
Update 6/16/2002. usb-storage and dual mice work fine now. Currently using 2.4.18 with acpi-20020517 with swusp6. A small patch is required to get the usb-storage stuff working due to the magic gate (memory stick) stuff not being totally supported. See patches section at the bottom of this page.
I purchased crossover plugin and Crossover Office from http://www.codeweavers.com/. So far it seems to be a little quirky. I have to reset it about once a day. It runs outlook with some graphical problems, my local PST file is on my local linux filesystem so I can access it when I am away from the office network. Word and Excel seem to be much more stable.
The plugins I am still having some problems with including audio playing at about 25 times too fast. Makes it sound very odd.
Update 6/16/2002. Updated all versions of crossover. The office applications are now much more stable for me. I still have some audio issues especially with windows media player.
Update 8/11/2002. Crossover Office now supports Visio and Quicken. The number of applications that I actually need to run is quickly decreasing.
Update 8/19/2002. Crossover support does not support uninstalling applications very well. Basically if it does not work right away, you are looking at a re-install. (Oh yes, you CAN back up your ~/cxoffice/support/dotwine directory before and after every application install). Visio basics work, but I have been unable to get my templates installed for the enterprise 2000 version.
I own a license for the vmware http://www.vmware.com/. I am currently running V3.1 on my laptop. My work stuff is now on an image. I had some problems with video corruption when the image is trying to run full screen and switches the resolution on boot-up and shutdown to 640x480. My fix? Hit alt-tab and run it in a window when I need to startup or shutdown the vmware machine. It also looks like I may be able to get the USB to work enough to sync my handheld to outlook.
Update 5/16/2002. I have successfully synced my handheld under vmware.
XFree-V4.2.0 Config
output from glxinfo
/proc/interrupts:
CPU0 0: 296401 XT-PIC timer 1: 10221 XT-PIC keyboard 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade 8: 1 XT-PIC rtc 9: 12146 XT-PIC acpi, usb-uhci, usb-uhci, usb-uhci, Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II, Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (#2), Intel ICH3 10: 114088 XT-PIC prism2_cs 11: 141 XT-PIC sonypi 12: 50162 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse 14: 24846 XT-PIC ide0 15: 35 XT-PIC ide1 NMI: 0 ERR: 0
/proc/cmdline:
ro root=/dev/hda2 hdc=ide-scsi idebus=66 ide0=autotune ide0=dma ide1=autotune ide1=dma resume=/dev/hda3
uname -a:
Linux tedlaptop.serreyn.com 2.4.18-1acpi0517swusp6 #1 Sun Jun 16 13:20:54 CDT 2002 i686 unknown
Audio "skipping"
FIXED!!! by installing the ACPI patches to get the IRQs to route properly. FIXED!!!
Still have not gotten the modem to work properly.
FIXED!!!! Install Conexant modem drivers from http://www.mbsi.ca/cnxtlindrv/hsf/downloads.html
No serial port, I purchased both a port replicator (Which does include a serial port) and a usb to serial converter. Both appear to be working great.
|
Product |
Working |
Notes |
| Video Card (Radeon 7500 Mobile) |
Yes |
1600x1200 16.1" screen! |
| Sound (Intel i810) |
Yes |
with ACPI patches no skipping |
| alsa Sound drivers |
Yes |
|
| Power Management |
Partially |
see below |
| Suspend |
Partially |
using swsusp patch |
| Batter Status |
Yes |
with ACPI, wmacpi for xapp |
| Throttle CPU |
Partially |
manually throttle |
| DVD |
Yes |
works with ogle/xine |
| CD-RW |
Yes |
use scsi-emulation |
| Playing Audio CDs |
Yes |
works with xmms plugin here |
| Pcmcia |
Yes |
|
| USB |
Yes |
problem with usb storage fixed |
| Jogdial |
Yes |
no back button support? |
| Modem (????) |
Yes |
Use Conexant modem drivers |
| Dual mouse |
Yes |
Works fine with acpi |
| USB to serial converter ATEN UC232A |
Yes |
Works Great! |
| USB Floppy (Sony PCGA-UFD5) |
Yes |
Works |
| Memory Stick |
Yes |
Works with small patch |
| iLink (IEEE1394) aka Firewire | Unknown | reported to work with modules |
| Fn buttons | Unknown | appear to NOT work |
| External video switching |
Unknown |
Need to work for Presentations |
| Port Replicator |
Testing |
Appears to work, testing |
| Others? |
Video corruption switching from VTY back to X11. Update 8/19/2002: Works with latest DRI modules.
Software suspend from X, makes X unusable upon resume. (Update 7/22/02 works if I turn off agpgart and radeon dri modules, of course I also lose accellerated X then). Update 8/11/2002: This is supposedly fixed with the latest dri modules. I will test and report. Update 8/19/2002: The latest DRI modules fix a multitude of problems. I know can switch VTYs, suspend, resume and it all works. VMWare problems seem to also have gone away.
Software suspend does not work reliably. Update 8/19/2002: This is getting much better. My problems now are mostly figuring out what needs to be re-initialized after resume.
Back button does not do anything.
Software buttons do not do anything.
Video corruption going running vmware < 1600x1200 full screen, i.e. run 800x600 in full-screen mode. (Update 7/22/02: works if I turn off agpgart and radeon dri modules, of course I also lose accellerated X then). Update 8/19/2002: This appears to be fixed with the latest DRI modules.
i810 DMA buffer overflow from sound on vmware
Need to test port replicator fully.
Audio CDs do not play. Update 8/1/02: Works with xmms plugin located here. I used the 0.14a version and it worked perfectly.
No ability to test firewire. Reportedly works both video type inputs and harddrives.
|
Distro |
Working |
Verified By |
| Redhat 7.2 |
Yes |
upgraded to XF 4.2, Ted Serreyn (tedATNOSPAM.serreyn.com) |
| Redhat 7.3 |
Yes |
Ted Serreyn, upgrade from 7.2 |
| Redhat 8.0 |
Yes |
Disable kudzu by going into single user mode and doing a chkconfig --del kudzu |
| Mandrake 8.1 |
Unknown |
|
| Mandrake 8.2 |
Yes |
Brian Clark, others |
| Mandrake 9.0 |
Yes |
Brian Clark, others |
| SME Server/E-Smith |
No |
Does not support PCMCIA |
| Suse |
Unknown |
|
| Debian |
Yes |
Colette Remi (GRX 316MP) |
| Gentoo |
Yes |
Marcus Ruldolph |
| Others |
Unknown |
Add your distro status by emailing me |
The current kernel being used is kernel-2.4.18. Note that swsusp does not yet patch cleanly into 2.4.19.
patch-acpi-acpi20020726-swsusp11.gz
Download linux kernel and above patches to /usr/src. If you want to use my current kernel config, download it here.
tar -xvzf linux-2.4.18.tar.gz
gunzip acpi-20020726-2.4.18.diff.gz
gunzip patch-acpi-acpi20020726-swsusp11.gz
cd linux
patch -p1 <../acpi-20020726-2.4.18.diff
patch -p1 <../patch-acpi-acpi20020726-swsusp11
patch -p1 <../memstick.patch
If you downloaded my kernel-config do the following
make mrproper; cp ../kernel-config .config
Edit the kernell Makefile and uncomment out the /boot line around line 74 so it reads as follows
export INSTALL_PATH=/boot
build and install kernel and modules
make oldconfig; make dep; make clean; make bzlilo; make modules modules_install
patch-acpi-acpi20020517-swsusp6.gz
patch-acpi-acpi20020726-swsusp11.gz
I have gotten reports that debian works.
I have gotten reports that SUSE has issues getting kernel patched.
I have gotten reports that Mandrake works.
Enable Fn keys using a daemon here at http://www.juljas.net/linux/vaiofx240/sonykeyd.html
Autospeed step which controls the speed of cpu is available at http://gpsdrive.kraftvoll.at/ at the bottom of the page.
The latest DRI modules are available at http://dri.sourceforge.net/ This fixes problems with the VT switching and corruption upon resume.
8/2/2002: I have now been running the latest patches for both swsusp (beta11) and 0726 version of acpi patch. In general things seem to be working, but I suddenly had a problem with my usb serial adapter (at a customer site of course). I am looking into this and developing a way to suspend and resume more reliably. Right now I have just turned off the accelerated graphics as I really don't use them that much and need vmware to work properly.
7/7/2002: The video corruption problems seem to be related to dri/agpart issues. Disabling those modules temporarily are allowing me to suspend and resume (including X11), fixes the problems with VMWARE. However, it seems to break ogle (or resuming does) for dvd playing.
I am now playing with swsusp beta 8 and acpi 20020611 versions on 2.4.18 kernel. I'm still not brave enough to try to run the 2.5 series kernel.
6/16/2002: Updating versions of crossover office and crossover plugin resolve most of my issues with the product. Magic Gate memory stick now works and usb-storage no longer locks up.
5/16/2002: Successfully synced IPAQ handheld to windows running under vmware. I would love to see a sync package for this handheld on linux.
8/10/2002: Upgraded laptop to Redhat 7.3. Upgrade did not go totally well. Ended up hand upgrading a whole bunch of packages. I also have had reports that dri problems with vty switching seem to be fixed with latest modules.
8/19/2002: Upgraded patches on the page to be the latest revs ta. This is what I am now running. Updated DRI modules to the latest to fix problems with vty and VMARE video corruption. Now it all works and accelerated X11 too!
10/09/2002: Playing with 2.4.19 and latest acpi patches. So far looks good, need to get swsusp into it also before I will recommend it. Also updated distro list.
This page Last updated on Tuesday October 22, 2002