ubuntu on vpcz1

That would be cool because I really want to use stamina all the time

 

Anyone ever get brightness control working? I fear the ACPI calls for backlight control are handled by the intel graphics, which we have been force disabling due to lack of driver support in ubuntu. Anyone?

 

You guys are listing all the reasons why i can't switch to linux (altough i would the moment everything worked fine). Some of the problems are show-stoppers, e.g. being unable to run in stamina mode, lack of brightness control and the inability to display/see virtual terminals.
Until all these get fixed (i wish), i ll stick to win7 and virtualbox.

 

Hi again,

a status of my setup!

THIS STILL HAPPENS - Sometimes (let say 1 of 5 boots), I looks the keyboard and trackpad and I am not able to login (it is stuck on the KDM login). I can reboot by pressing the power button and the next boot is fine

- The Intel card is not crashing anymore (yeah!). I now use grub1 and removed the nomodeset option. Though, the display is still messed up (bad colors etc ..) I cant find why :/

Could someone paste his working xorg.conf for the intel card please ?

And of course, there is still the brightness issue with the nvidia card .. impossible to set it!

Thanks

 

I'm using the Intel card currently without an Xorg.conf and with modesetting. But to make this work I have to boot with syslinux from an usb stick.
You can try this by just booting the normal livecd (or usb) with the switch set to stamina). If you don't get a black screen, it works. Brightness switch works 100% through /proc/acpi/video/GFX0/LCD/brightness (hotkeys aren't handled right by gnome-power-manager).
If it works for you, too, I can post a howto later.

Maybe I should give grub1 a try, too. But ultimately, this is a BIOS issue. Seems like there is some fancy OS detection, that behaves differently when booting from isolinux/usb, grub2 from hdd and grub1 from hdd.

Brightness not working with the NVidia Card is fortunately just an an NVidia driver issue. I recall having working brightness control with the nouveau opensource driver. So let's hope NVidia adds support for brightness control on the 330M soon.

 

Hi,

thanks for your answers.
I hope that the brightness will be fixed soon on nvidia, this is a real stopper for me.

Also, I wonder why I have the keyboard disabled on some boot. It even happens in single user mode when the menu pops up.
I patched and flashed the bios, I hope it is not related.
I also selected the numlock enable option in the bios.

Regards

 

Thanks troll...in acpi GFX0 is the intel gpu (the nvidia is dgpu).

When you are running on the intel card are you getting acceleration and correct resolution? If so, how did you get it working?

My concern with Nvidia brightness is that when we force speed mode (static bios switching) even windows loses brightness control. However forcing stamina Windows still has brightness control.

Thanks.

 

Some see it as a reason to stick to Windows 7, others as a reason to not buy Sony laptops again until Sony has cleaned up their ****.
It's not Linux' fault that Sony makes undocumented changes to standard hardware, without even providing an API so the Linux devs can add support. This doesn't imply any immaturity in Linux nor does it signal that things CAN work fine one day. Unless certain manufacturers stop their practice of deliberately making it difficult for developers of other OSes than what it was delivered with, and consumers stop rewarding these companies by buying their product, there won't be any change.

 

Hi,

the things is that when I used the intel card (static) I have:

- very bad color with my kubuntu install
- bad colors with the ubuntu live CD (10.04)
- sometimes windows 7 is stuck before the login page

Very bad experience of intel card on the vaio...

 

I agree with it being Sony's fault, however I'm not entirely certain is specifically designed to prevent other OS's.

The combo graphics is a pretty unique setup and thus is not likely easily handled by standard ACPI calls. Additionally, if you poke through the Linux laptop modules you'll see most OEM's have some specific code that needs to be inserted for everything to work properly...hotkeys, backlights, etc.

My main frustration with sony specifically is no hardware (bios?) control over backlights....meaning you have no brightness control until the sony drivers are loaded. This is not an issue with "most" other notebooks.

OT but I think you guys will appreciate...our new Z's apparently are "tuned" to NOT run at full backlight brightness EVER. In my toying around with "other" os's...I noticed the screen got SIGNIFICANTLY brighter than the brightest setting available in windows...and yes I've turned off the automatic dimming feature.

I've confirmed this by also noting the temperature of the bottom of the lcd on the back...significantly warmer in os's other than Windows.

2 Q's arise from this...1.) why? 2.) is there a chance that the full backlight setting by running linux or other os's could damage something?

 

I'm considering buying a Z, but I hate to hear that Sony has left critical system functions up to installed software! It would be even worse if they used Optimus,which doesn't even have a hardware switch for which graphics card to use, and thus at current Linux can't even SEE the discrete card.

I don't see why brightness and all the other features that require hotkeys, as well as designating which graphics card to use, can't just be set in the BIOS so they would be platform agnostic. This is a $2000 notebook, and I don't expect corners to be cut.

 

I don't think it's "corner cutting"....obviously engineering all this custom code costs more money that using off the shelf bios....

It enables nice on-screen brightness display, real graphics switching, auto dimming functioning etc. The other advantage sony has is every time one of the hotkey related features reveal a bug, the user can install software update vs. a bios update.

I'm not saying I LIKE it...just that it doesn't strike me as corner cutting.

 

Hacked bios, set Static parameter, and switch Speed Mode, boot to Usb Ubuntu work. After this never can´t boot in Ubuntu, only if I set stamina, always (in speed mode, Static parameter) boot in Windows (F11 Pressed)

 

Plug into vga and you should get image. install restricted nvidia drivers to get the panel working

 

For the record, i totally agree wit you. Still, this is a pretty good laptop...

 

Am I the only one to experience at some boots that the keyboard and the trackpad are not enabled under linux ?

Thanks

 

No, I'm also experiencing that.

PS: My way to boot in Ubuntu is first booting an old kernel using a USB stick (Speed mode selected), then reboot (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and then Ubuntu loads ok. No BIOS hack required, but it is so tricky.

 

Alisxsr,

I think your issue is perhaps the newer linux kernels aren't reporting their os correctly to force the vaio into static switching mode automatically. The ACPI routines are such that if anything less than vista is detected the next boot goes into a "true" static video switching mode. It appears with recent linux versions the Z is not switching to that model.

Troll you have the i8042.nopnp=1 set?

 

Ok! So its not my HW then .. pfiouuu
The bios trick is really easy to do ... maybe you should give it a try!

My biggest concern now is to make the damn brightness work with nvidia...

 

installed 10.04 - everything essential working other than bluetooth. There are no karmic backports in synaptic (as referred in a much earlier thread). Does anyone have bluetooth working on 10.04?

 

Yes, bluetooth working perfectly from first install.

 

Thanks aleixsr - that tells me it can be done (Iknow that hardware is fine because bluetooth works in Win7)

Any pointers on what I can try? When I open the bluetooth applet it just says "Your computer doesnot have any bluetooth adapters plugged in". hciconfig doesn't show any interfaces either

 

ssg - I know it's a dumb question, but is the wireless switch on? Was it on when you installed ubuntu?

 

yes it is and was on during installation. Bluetooth works if I boot into win7. I re-installed this morning but still no luck. The only things I changed during/after install were to add i8042.pnp and nomodeset to the boot options (in /etc/default/grub) and used the restricted NVIDIA driver available through ubuntu...

 

Btw

did anyone manage to make the 2 fingers scroll work ?

 

Weird it works for me no problem as well.

 

update: after a reboot bluetooth is now working! There were many reboots since installation - there was nothing special about this particular reboot, not even an update...

Thanks for the replies aleixsr and beaups

 

Hi, here is a script for 2 fingers scroll and click! (on vpc z11)

 

This works for the wireless also. To have both wireless and blue tooth working you must boot windows, have then both switched on, then boot Ubuntu and they show up working. Later if you boot windows and switch bluetooth or wireless off(with software) then it wont work in your next boot.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks zakeen.

I can corroborate this behaviour - I had booted into Win7 to make sure that bluetooth was indeed working and in the process switched it on. After that bluetooth has worked consistently in Ubuntu.

 

I wonder, for those looking for working fingerprint scroll, have you guys tried following driver: Welcome To UPEK - Solutions - PC & Networking - SDKs - Linux Development Kits
It works fine on my Lucid Lynx installed through Wubi, however I'm a Z690J user...still you might give it a try...

 

Hi,

I use fingerprint gui and it works for su and sudo for me on kubuntu.
Still didnt find a way to make it work with kscreensaver and kdm..

 

Troll, are u saying, u're not able to use fingerprint on the logon screen?
U see, I'm a gnome user myself, still a beginner on ubuntu though:|
All I can say now: fingerprint works fine for me after having that driver installed, just to be sure to be sure I also installed everything UPEK/fingerprint related from the Ubuntu Software Center (can't remember specific names of those packages now, I'm typing this from within Win7)...

good luck with solving your issues

 

thanks but the login issue is related to kde,...

 

Troll, maybe I haven't made myself clear enough: I can use fingerprint on the logon screen without a problem, if this is what u mean...

 

Yes but fingerprint at login is OK with GDM, not KDM (apparently)

 

By the by, the RAID steps you referenced work on 9.10, but not with 10.04. A new install from Ubuntu 10.04 alt fails.

Thanks for the links tho, helped me out

 

Zoinks, the official 10.04 LTS release works just fine using default installation method from the standard CD Basically it just works like it should without all the command line BS...at least it did for me

 

Well, that would have saved some time

LTS didn't work for me the two times I tried it. I'm a Windows guy, so I probably did something stupid.

 

I just like to screw around with it from time to time so I don't forget my roots Either way, you're not missing out on much.

 

Hi pal!

I have succesfully installed Ubuntu 10.04 and it is a bit tricky. I have also compiled latest kernel and it works terrific!

If there is someone that like to know how to do it, just tell me and I will write it down here.

Regards!

 

There is a guide on this thread on how to setup Ubuntu, what did you do differently?

To all: Is there a fix for the absence of VT? I could do without the intel gfx card but the absence of VT is a show stopper. Also, has anyone tried any battery-life tests on Linux and if you have how is it compared to Windows?

Thanks

 

Z has VT. Just enable it in BIOS.

 

It does. What it no longer has is EFI boot support (disabled in BIOS 2169 for the old Z, and never re-enabled).

 

I did it without reflashing the BIOS and in Ubuntu 10.04 there are a couple of problems regarding fakeRAID that make installing Ubuntu a difficult task...

 

So I've got linux installed, but when I boot it goes to a black screen. I was told plugging in a second monitor would get it to display until I installed the nvidia drivers. But it won't display on the other monitor either. It displays fine in the livecd, and I can enable the 2nd monitor on the liveCD. Is there any way to get this working?

I also read about flashing the bios to be able to switch the nvidia card off/on, but is there any way to do that without taking the laptop apart to take out the HDDs and optical drive? I'm really bashing my head against a wall here. I bought the Z because it seemed like it wouldn't be that much of a hassle, especially since my TZ works beautifully.

Edit:

I got it to boot into the terminal. I'm gonna compile the latest kernel with the patch and try to get the nvidia drivers running and see if I can get X running. I really really want to keep my power usage from the video card to a minimum, but I've had bad luck with flashing bios'

 

there's a BIOS update, with release number R2074C3
is it safe to install if we patched the bios?
does it need reflash afterwards?

thanks for the great tips in this topic btw

 

Link for the BIOS, pls?

EDIT: Got it. I'm giving her a go

http://www.sony.com.au/support/download/403512/sectionfirst?subpage=detail

EDIT 2: All done. I started a new thread here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/499121-sony-z1x-series-bios-update-r2074c3.html

 

I haven't read this entire thread yet, only some of the pages, but...

What does one have to do to get Ubuntu 10.04 (Desktop Edition) to run on a VPCZ122GX?

My main problem is the video is garbled. It displays a lot of purples, and the whole thing looks like it's 16 colours (not 16-bit, but _sixteen_ colours).

I've tried updating my BIOS from the default R2070C3 it came with to R2074C3, which supposedly fixes "NVIDIA Video BIOS issue," and I _really_ hoped that would do the trick, but I saw no change.

Obviously I tried Speed, Stamina, and Auto switch settings, but I don't think they made any difference.

 

I haven't seen this in the thread yet: I want to keep my Win7 on its own partition (I resized it and make 50GB free space for Ubuntu). But when I go to install Ubuntu on the free space it gives an error on creating the ext4 file system on the free space; RAID problem?