sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Albert Vilella <avilella@xxxxxxxxx>]

Just to clarify about the z-series naming, I would call "z-series09":
the first generation z-series, and "z-series10" to the second
generation.

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 6:54 PM, Alexei Pashkovsky <alexei@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Jason,
>
> the cold-boot gfx switching procedure works for switching between
> Nvidia-only and "both enabled" mode.
> So far I did not find a way to boot into Linux with Intel card only, and
> Nvidia disabled.
> You can use Intel card, but Nvidia is still in lspci list and it still
> drains the battery, even not in use.
> One of the really fun-killing problems is the fan noise, you can't stop
> the fan completely, it always works, and I prefer silent laptops like
> all the new CULV series ..
> The only way I see Z-series being fixed is Sony to release EFI-based
> opensource bios for it so someone smarter than sony monkeys will hack it
> to work.
> The current implementation of dual gfx cards in Z is very "custom made"
> and has nothing to do with other solutions like ATI+Intel that is well
> supported by linux..
> Alexei.
>
>
> On Thu, 2010-03-18 at 14:43 -0400, ravenskrag@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> 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
>
>
>
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