Drivers for SZ650-Ubuntu 7.10

Where can I find a complete list of drivers for an SZ650, or SZ in general?

I am in Ubuntu 7.10 right now and I tried listening to music but the music doesnt come through the earphones...it plays through the speakers...so I thought I should just look for all the drivers.

Surprisingly the nVIDIA drivers were already there....and I'm enjoying the fancy desktop interface Ubuntu 7.10 has to offer.

 

Open a terminal and type alsamixer
Look if the headphones are there....if it's the case, select "headphones" and press M tu unmute

 

Thanks I will try that.

Any other SZ Linux users? Where do you get your drivers from?

 

I typed that command and there are no headphones appearing.

Isnt there some repository or some place to download a set of drivers?

 

I suppose you could download windows drivers, and use ndiswrapper.

Edit: I don't know why you'd use that, since you can get sound through speakers =/

 

Interesting link here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/136807

You should try to apply all available updates, specially kernel updates

 

I am guessing here but do you have intel HDA sound? If so this has been common for the six months. If you google around there have been a few fixes that work for some people. You might also have to look for a newer ALSA dirver or possibly an older one.

 

The link I posted is about that

Code:

I've just discovered another fault:

 * HDA headphones don't work.
   Plugging in headphones the speakers are muted but no sound in
 headphones. Unplug and sound returns to speakers.

[...]

Code:

Gutsy's headphone output doesn't work (speaker mute does) 
- Feisty's is confirmed working.

[...]

Code:

Okay, good news.

One or other update has enabled the headphone functionality correctly[...]

 

What Windows drivers are you speaking of? For using ndiswrapper, can I install that by simply typing "sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper" in the Terminal?

I can get sound in the speakers, but not through the earphones...

Thanks John, I'll try that out.

I think I have Intel HDA sound with a SigmaTel HD something Audio Codec. I am booted into Ubuntu 7.10 right now.

 

Tell me when it's done...

 

I dont seem to see where to download the appropriate packages. Its just a bug report.

 

It's in Ubuntu itself....do you see a small icon in your tray bar saying that updates are available?

You can also: System --> Administration --> Update manager

 

I went to the Update Manager and updated my system. I think it resolved the issue of recognizing my battery but the issue of sound coming through the earphones still exists.

 

Check what version you of the HDA you have. It makes a difference, you might have to go to the ALSA site and down load from there. You can check the site and the doc/support for more information. If you need some help just let me know I have had to compile the drivers a few times.

 

I searched for ALSA and went to this page: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page

Do I download alsa-driver-1.0.15, in the download package box, top right area of the webpage above?

 

Typically you need these as a minimum:

Current versions

* alsa-driver-1.0.15
* alsa-lib-1.0.15
* alsa-utils-1.0.15
* alsa-tools-1.0.15
But for more of walk through start here to get an idea of what you are up against.
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/Main_Page

Also if you google intel hda linux sound problems or intel hda alsa linux sound problems it will lead you to a good path.

Ubuntu is a very good distro but in making gel the way it does some new drivers take a while to make into the repositories. Also some issues (like yours) seem to work on some machines and just not on others. I had issues with my intel hda sound in fedora it took me 3 days of playing with it to make it work. Then I tried Ubuntu on a clean install and everything just worked

 

vaio2k7;

Except sound output issue, how about rest of all ? Bluetooth, wireless, DVDWriter etc... Especially, can u use fn key for brightness setting ?

 

Well I have not booted into Ubuntu since last week but I do recall that Bluetooth and wireless both showed up immediately. Wireless works really well and thats why I chose to install Ubuntu 7.10. I have not tried burning any files/media to a DVD but I was able to insert a DVD and watch a movie with VLC Player. FN keys work for muting and adjusting volume, but not for adjusting brightness. Other reason why I have not booted into Ubuntu over the course of the week is that battery life is horrible. It displayed 40 minutes remaining with 97% charged, then 25 minutes with 92% charged. I rebooted into Vista and had 6 hours 20 something minutes remaining.

If I am plugged into an outlet and using my computer casually, its fine to boot into Ubuntu. Music and video play in VLC player, internet is internet, and you have access to your NTFS (Windows files) partitions.

To install something, most likely you can do it from the Terminal, typing"

sudo apt-get install NameOfApplication

This allows for quickly setting up main features you want.

 

or with Synaptic...

 

Just a quick question on this, have you let it run down to see how long it really does run? I have been looking around a bit and it seems that the meter might not always be correct. I have a year old sz220 and with 7.04 I get 2-3 hours of battery life on mine. It starts out with 2 hours and readjusts as time goes on. Just curious if it is really accurate.

 

I have not really tried since like in my last post I said it originally showed 40 minutes, and then after 20 minutes or so it shows 20-25 minutes. A friend of mine has an older model (1-2 years old), like a Sony S680 or something, and he gets 4 hours battery life in Windows XP yet under an hour in Ubuntu 7.10.

I will try it again sometime but for now I only boot into Ubuntu 7.10 to fool around while plugged in.

 

Strange, I don't really remember mine under XP (only had it installed for a month or so) my battery life seems about the same. But charging it takes 3-4 hours closer to 4. I seem to remember it being faster under XP though.

 

Well I'm running Gentoo with kernel 2.6.22 on a SZ650, and I get 3.5 hours out of the battery in stamina mode with wifi running and bluetooth shut off. But I found that if you suspend then come back to active, you can get the screen to minimum brightness which helps battery life considerably, at the expense of needing good lighting to read the screen. All in all a pretty good laptop although I haven't cracked getting the motion eye webcam working (it's a Ricoh U870UVC, which has a driver for linux but you need the firmware loaded to get it to work) and the sound issue is there too. Going to test 2.6.24-git to see if it works any better for sound...

 

I just loaded 7.10 on mine and battery life went to 1.5 hours or little less. When I get time later I will check into cpu throttling to see if it is enabled correctly.

 

I still havent found a fix for the sound problems I've been having with Ubuntu 7.10. Sound plays in the speakers, but when you plug earphones into the headphones/earphones jack, the sound still comes through the speakers, not my earphones.

I've tried various commands through searching but still havent found the fix.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

The last time I had that problem I had to download and recompile the alsa sound drivers. But I think I just got lucky with that. You should look there to see if there is anything that might help.

 

Take a look here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=193214

if it's the same problem, then it's easy to solve...

 

Thanks for the pointer. I'll reply there.

 

I've got that issue solved with the 2.6.24 kernel and passing the following option to snd-hda-intel.ko : model=vaio . With that the sound output on the headphones works fine as does the mic input.

For screen brightness, get the xbacklight app, it'll work too. So now apart from the webcam I have everything working in linux.