sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[ravenskrag@xxxxxxxxx]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Alexei Pashkovsky <alexei@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> So far I did not see a single operating system that would run on this
> laptop 100%, every OS has its "issues" :
> Linux can't switch gfx cards and Nvidia card drains the battery.
> WinXP won't switch gfx neither, and also brightness controls are not
> working.
> WinVista - not going to even start the list of problems.
> Win7 - gfx switch, battery issues, random crashes and reboots.
> In addition, the built-in webcam is a really bad one, with shady colors
> and no focus at all.
>
> Alexei.
Hey there,

Little bit of nit picking here, but you can switch graphics cards on
Linux, but you need to shut down, there is no hot switching support.
I believe the same case is true for XP.  I also believe that there is
something to get the brightness to work on XP.  Correct me if I am
wrong.  Also, the NVidia card takes more power as it is a dedicated
card, and thus, of course, will drain the battery more than the
integrated card.

I agree though that the 185 NVidia linux drivers sap more power than
is sometimes necessary, as there is no power saving mode, only a
performance mode.  The newer drivers seem to solve this problem, but
the janitor does not install the 32-bit libs on a 64-bit system, which
is only a problem if you use WINE.  I assume that other 32 programs
may also be affected.  If that is not a problem for you (and if you
don't know what I'm talking about then you are most likely in that
category) then go ahead and use the janitor and pick the FTP download
- that's what I would do if I could let go of my desire to play
commercial games without windows.

Vista just has problems in general.  That's what you get when you
sacrifice backwards compatibility.  That's my view on it anyway.  I
don't want to go there, and yes, I do use vista myself.

Another note, as of yet I believe you still can not use W7 and Linux
on the same computer.

Jason