sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Chris Cannam <cannam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 5:30 PM, Chris Cannam
<cannam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> So far I'm experiencing surprisingly abject failure in every
> direction.

So I actually switched from Ubuntu to Arch Linux, because although I
appreciate the fact that on the whole Ubuntu is more likely to work on
any given hardware, its relative sophistication makes it harder for
the dimwitted to troubleshoot in situations where nothing appears to
be working.

But just to report back on a few things that may be of interest:

 * Intel display: i915 kernel mode setting with the Arrandale chipset
works reliably for me in the latest kernels (I ended up building a
2.6.34-rc3, plus latest np sony_laptop module)

Note all of the following refers to "stamina" mode with Intel drivers,
I haven't tried the nVidia again and don't immediately plan to.

 * Brightness keys don't work by default, though I can change the
brightness manually with e.g. echo 4 >
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness and I can see the key
events with acpi_listen so presumably they can be hooked up (just
looking at Raphael's script for doing this with nVidia and thinking it
looks mostly applicable)

 * Display doesn't come back on after suspend/resume.  Disappointing,
as a recent kernel patch looked as if it was intended to address this

 * I would like to power off the nVidia, but don't know how: trying to
do it with vga_switcheroo gives me the same oops as Peter reported

 * Touchpad works with Stefan's suggested boot option.  It was
initially unusably jittery and oversensitive, but that seems to have
become fixed in the course of other changes (can't readily identify
what fixed it -- possibly some HAL or evdev-related change -- but if
this is bothering anyone else, I can try to find out)

 * Wireless works (iwlagn driver) though it seems a wee bit temperamental

 * BIOS doesn't seem to want to boot EFI applications under any
circumstances, even with no other storage devices connected, so the
static video card switch method described at
feature-enable.blogspot.com doesn't seem to be possible

Power consumption about 21W on middling brightness, which I hope means
the nVidia is still powered on -- that would be pretty high otherwise.


Chris