Linux on Sony VAIO PCG-SRX51P
I recently replaced the 30 GB Hitachi hard disk drive with a quieter
40 GB drive from Samsung. To prepair for a dual boot Windows/Fedora
system I first used the Windows recovery CDs to install Windows
XP. You can chose either 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 of the disk capacity to be
used for a primary NTFS partition containing Windows, so in my case 10
GB was the minimum size. The remaining space is used for an extended
partition with an empty logical NTFS partition.
To further reduce the space occupied by Windows I first ran the
included defragmentation tool (somewhere hidden in the settings) and
then booted from a Knoppix 3.4 CD to use QtParted for resizing the
NTFS partition. Knoppix needs to be started in expert modus (type
'expert' at the boot prompt) and when asked for modules to include you
must choose 'sbp2.o', which is required to detect the FireWire DVD
drive.
QtParted worked well resizing the primary NTFS partition to 7GB, but
it reported error messages when I tried to create ext3 partitions for
a Linux installation from hard disk, so I quit the program leaving 33
GB free space on the disk and went for an installation from CD/DVD
instead. I fetched the FC2 DVD image from a Red Hat mirror server and
burnt a DVD with it (the four CD images will do as well).
You can boot from the FC2 CD/DVD, but the DVD drive itself is not
detected by the installer, because Red Hat omitted the buggy FireWire
modules for kernel 2.6.5. There is, however, a workaround boot image
[1]
(see section 1 in the 0README) which provides the modules required. I
burnt a CD-RW with the boot-firewire.iso and booted from it. When
/sbin/loader starts, I inserted the FC2 DVD and the installation
continues normally. You can use the Disk Druid for partitioning.
The display is not auto detected during the installation, so I chose a
generic LCD Panel and a 1024x768 resolution. For the graphics device
the module i810 is used.
If you want to activate 3D acceleration you
have to reduce the color depth to 16 bit (65536 thousand colors),
e.g. by using system-config-display or editing
/etc/X11/xorg.conf. If you log in from a console you may leave
this file untouched and start xorg with
$ startx -- -depth 16
After rebooting or restarting the screen server glxinfo | grep
render should answer with direct rendering: Yes. The frame
rate displayed by glxgears is close to 1800 compared to 120
without DRI. A 3D game like crack-attack can now be played, but
starting tuxracer or neverball, always locks up the
screen server and puts me back to the login screen.
To use an external display as a clone screen it must be plugged in at
boot time. If you want to connect after booting you need the
i810switch utility [2],
which forces the signal to the external display. The LCD and external
display can be switched on/off independently. You can also use the Fn-F7
key binding via i810rotate and rsjog
[3],
see below in the Mouse section.
Ethernet works, but the WLAN device is wrongly configured as wired
ethernet as well. To change this I started system-config-network and
deleted the wireless hardware device named 'orinoco_cs'. Alternatively
remove or comment out the following line from /etc/modprobe.conf:
alias eth1 orinoco_cs
After next boot the WLAN hardware reappeared in
system-config-network as 'Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE
Adapter'. I created a new wireless entry using that hardware and then
everything worked fine ...except for one thing:
I configured both interfaces to be set up via DHCP and consequently to
be started manually and not at boot time, but the wireless interface
comes up anyway, apparently because it is a PCMCIA device and that
service is started after network is started, bringing up the device as
soon as it is recognised. Hence the entry 'ONBOOT=no' in
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 made by
system-config-network takes no effect.
Autostarting a PCMCIA network device is quiet useful for a WLAN PC
Card, but not for a device you cannot physically insert or remove. One
way I found to suppress it was to comment out a line in
/etc/hotplug/net.agent reading
exec /sbin/ifup $INTERFACE
Another way is to start the PCMCIA service manually to bring up the
device. Placing the PCMCIA service to a position prior to the network
service in the init process did no longer work after a recent kernel
upgrade.
You can also completely disable ('eject') the WLAN card it with
$ cardctl eject 1
Not detected due to the removal of FireWire drivers mentioned above, but
meanwhile there is a kernel update (2.6.6) available from Red Hat
providing the FireWire modules required. Use yum or
up2date to install. Afterwards the DVD drive was, however,
still not detected until I added the line
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
to /etc/modprobe.conf. After rebooting, Kudzu comes up and adds
another line:
alias scsi_hostadapter sbp2
There is also a workaround for kernel 2.6.5 on
[1]
(see section 2.1 in the 0README) which worked well.
For mounting the drive I created a directory /dvd and added this to /etc/fstab
/dev/scd0 /dvd auto noauto,user 0 0
The MemoryStick device is auto-detected. I changed the entry in
/etc/fstab and added one for a USB-Stick
/dev/sda1 /mst vfat noauto,user 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /usb vfat noauto,user 0 0
USB mouse works, too. I can even attach my (non-Sony) digicam now, it
no longer causes immediate crashes as on RH9.
Initially the Fn keys are enabled only for the dual function of the
cursor buttons. To activate the scroll wheel the sonypi driver must be
installed. As described in
/usr/src/linux-2.6.5-1.358/Documentation/sonypi.txt you have
to create a device
# mknod /dev/sonypi c 10 250
and add the following to /etc/modprobe.conf
alias char-major-10-250 sonypi
options sonypi minor=250
KDE comes with a nice 'Sony Vaio Hardware' plugin 'Kmilo' which pops
up a huge windown informing you about the battery state when you push
the 'back' button (and, annoyingly, also when KDE is started). By
keeping 'Strg' pressed while turning the scroll wheel you can adjust
the brightness, but 'Alt' + scroll wheel won't adjust the volume as it
is said to do in kcontrol. So I installed rsjog
[3],
which also gives more functionality to the Fn keys, e.g. you can use
Fn-F7 for switching between LCD and external display if you have
i810switch [2]
installed and add the following to your ~/.rsjogrc
bind FNKEY_F7 i810rotate
rsjog requires spicctrl
[4]
and ruby-gtk
[5].
Compilation of the latter (Version 0.34) caused some troubles: A
required header file 'rbgdkcursors.h' wasn't found. When I removed the
corresponding include line in 'rbgdkcursor.c' in the src direcory
compilation proceeded successfull and surprisingly a file
'rbgdkcursors.h' appeared, so I inserted the include line again and
now compilation worked as expected.
With Gnome rsjog works fine, but with KDE it cannot access /dev/sonypi
as Kmilo seems to completely block it. You have to deactivate Kmilo in
kcontrol (components - services), which should be done as normal user
and as root, otherwise Kmilo starts whenever you log in as root via
su and start KDE applications. Also deactivate the function of the
middle mouse button if you don't like a KDE menu popping up together
with the rsjog menu. To adjust brightness via rsjog you need write
access to /dev/sonypi.
To make rsjog start automatically I placed this small script in
~/.kde/Autostart/ and made it executable:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/ruby -w /usr/local/bin/rsjog
On installation I included the package 'gnome-bluetooth' and later
added 'bluez-utils' from the DVD. By default the Bluetooth service is
started at boot time, but it doesnt' work, because the hardware is not
turned on, so I removed it from autostart using serviceconf
(all runlevels) and rebooted (which may not be necessary).
Use the spicctrl utility
[4]
to turn Bluetooth hardware on
# spicctrl -l 1
or add the above command to the beginning of the start function in
/etc/init.d/bluetooth
Then start the service via serviceconf or manually by
# /etc/init.d/bluetooth start
To connect to your mobile phone a device must be created:
# mknod -m 666 /dev/rfcomm0 c 216 0
Scan for your phone
# hcitool scan
Your phone's hardware address should be displayed like this:
Scanning ...
00:0E:07:43:3C:0F T610
Bind the laptop to it:
# rfcomm bind 0 00:0E:07:43:3C:0F 1
Make a test:
# echo "ATZ" > /dev/rfcomm0
If the laptop is not known to your phone already this will make the
laptop and then your phone ask you to enter the (same) PIN.
You can edit /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf if you want to automatically
bind the device when bluetooth is started:
rfcomm0 {
bind yes;
device 00:0E:07:43:3C:0F;
channel 1;
comment "T610";
}
To setup an internet connection using your phone as modem you can use
system-config-network.
You have to specify a provider name as well as login name and
password even if they are not required, phone number is *99***1#, init
string (in the extended tab) is 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","APN","",0,0' where
APN must be set appropriately, e.g. "internet" for O2 Germany. Finally
create a link from /dev/modem to
/dev/rfcomm0 to make it your modem device or edit
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-[provider]
MODEMPORT=/dev/rfcomm0
This way you can use /dev/modem for the winmodem
(see below). To dial in just type ifup [provider] or use the
GUI.
For sharing files I use kbluetoothd from the
'kdebluetooth framework'. I found a rpm package on
http://rpm.pbone.net/. Once
started it docks into the panel. A window will popup if you attempt to
send files from phone to laptop. To send files to the phone just start
konqueror and enter the URL 'sdp:/' or 'bluetooth:/', click on your
phone's icon and choose 'OBEX Object Push'. If you own a Sony mobile
phone and want to use it as remote control for your laptop take a look
at bluemote
[6].
The scanModem tool from
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/
told me it's a Conexant soft modem (HSF) with PCI ID 8086:2446
ICH2. I had no succes with the slmodem package available on that site,
so I tried the (free limited) HSF driver from
http://www.linuxant.com/
and it worked perfectly. After installing the appropriate rpm package
I had to run hsfconfig --region [country]. Modem device is linked
to /dev/ttySHSF0. You can use
system-config-network to configure the dialup connection.
Due to its experimental status I didn't really expect Suspend-to-RAM
to work properly, but was curious enough to try: I can actually put the
laptop to sleep using the 'klaptop' utility from KDE (which has to be
set up in kcontrol) or with
# echo -n "mem" > /sys/power/state
A message is displayed ("stopping tasks... PM: entering state",
followed by a blank screen and red blinking power light, hard disk is off.
It obviously tries to wake up when I press the power button (green
WLAN light, green power light, yellow battery light) or any button
(green WLAN light, no power lights), but in any case the screen keeps
blank and there is no activity any more. I have to remove power cable
and battery before I can reboot.
Starting and stopping normally is stable. Moving the power button
shuts down the laptop safely.
Some laptop unspecific settings I made:
- Start Laptop Mode [7] when running on battery, see
/usr/src/linux-2.6.6-1.435.2.3/Documentation/laptop-mode.txt
from the kernel-sourcecode package. The included script will make the
hard drive spindown for longer periods (which otherwise never happens
at all) and thus extend battery life.
- Made KDE my default desktop with switchdesk kde
- Made KDM my graphical login manager by adding DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE" to /etc/sysconfig/desktop.
- Removed mdmpd from autostarted services in serviceconf as it seems not required and caused errors when changing runlevels.
- Removed kernel boot option rhgd from /boot/grub/grub.conf,
because I like to see a lot of messages rather than a progress bar
during system start and don't want to press 'Alt+D' for that purpose.
