sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Farshad Khoshkhui <farshadkh@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Zithras <Zithras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I was out of town last week, so didn't get a chance to send in an update
> until today.
>
> Following thunderbee's recent invaluable guide, I was able to get
> Kubuntu 10.4 installed on the VPCZ1190X.
>
> As expected, I have to boot an older kernel each time to get the speed
> switch set, and I used the xorg.conf file at the end of the document
> (works great!)
>
> A couple points of note (quite obvious to most linux users, but still
> useful toward the intended goal of creating a guide for the 'new' linux
> user:
>
> for the commands:
> wget -nd http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.34-lucid
> /linux-image-2.6.34-020634-generic_2.6.34-020634_i386.deb
> wget -nd http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.34-lucid
> /linux-headers-2.6.34-020634_2.6.34-020634_all.deb
> wget -nd http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.34-lucid
> /linux-headers-2.6.34-020634-generic_2.6.34-020634_i386.deb
> dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.34-020634-generic_2.6.34-020634_i386.deb linux-
> headers-2.6.34-020634_2.6.34-020634_all.deb linux-
> headers-2.6.34-020634-generic_2.6.34-020634_i386.deb
>
> in the guide, replace all instances of 'i386' with your processor
> architecture ('amd64' for mine, and I think most new Z series laptops,
> or any 64 bit processor)
>
> if you are sshing into the computer to install Kubuntu as recommended,
> remember that you'll have to login as the main system account (not root
> like in the recovery console), and use 'sudo' before most commands.
> Remember to either make a strong password or disable ssh password
> authentication after you're done installing Kubuntu and have a GUI.
>
> if you need to copy/paste the xorg.conf file from the guide (i.e. you
> don't have one from a previous install), you'll also need to get a
> commandline text editor - vim works:
> copy file text, then in terminal (minus the 's)
> 'sudo apt-get install vim'
> 'sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf'
> 'i' #enter text insert mode
> #(paste text)
> 'esc' #back to command mode
> ':wq' #save and quit
>
> I now have Kubuntu working fine with the nVidia card!
>
> And a couple of questions I still have:
> 1) Other than the graphics card quirks, what's still not working (almost
> nothing is still broken, as far as I can tell; not sure if the
> fingerprint reader and webcam are working yet though?)
>
> 2) What's the best way to get the Kubuntu to see the 'fake' RAID?  (Do I
> just need to install the dmraid package?)  I can see the drives Windows
> and Kubuntu are installed on just fine (they're not in RAID), but I
> RAIDed the other two drives together for storage, and I can't see them
> in Kubuntu yet.  I don't need to boot from them (which seems to be the
> major problem with the fake raid), but it would be nice to be able to
> use them for file storage once Kubuntu is booted and running
>
> 3) any solution on the hardware graphics switch for the new Z series?
> (not really, as far as I can tell)
>
> 4) Has anyone gotten the Intel graphics adapter working on the new Z
> series models yet (I'm REALLY confused on this one.  Reading through the
> email archives, it looks like there's a possible bugfix out there, but
> I'm not really sure how to install and use it, if it works at all (or
> mostly, but with a few problems), or if it even applies to this computer
> model (the bug report mentions it fixing 'blurry' or 'incorrect' colors,
> rather than the black screen most of us are running into for the intel
> graphics)
>
> Thanks to everyone on the forums who's helped out, especially thunderbee
> and Frederick!
> I'll start installing programs, configuring, tweaking, and testing
> tomorrow!

Just to share my experience, After few hours of struggle I just
installed ubuntu lucid on my Z11PGX. Here's what I've done

1- Raid: I've disabled on-board intel raid-0. Installed windows on
first ssd, and installed linux with mdraid-0 on two other ssds. I
created the raid using mdadm before installing desktop lucid. The
trick was /dev/mdX device should have a filesystem in order to appear
in partman.
Fakeraid should work, but it didn't really worth the hassle.

2- Video: booting into an old kernel each time was un-acceptable, so I
went for enabling bios advanced options.
It's a bit risky, but worked for me
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/473226-insyde-hacking-new-vaio-z-advanced-menu-bios.html
After you enable advanced option, you can set the policy to static,
that resembles the way "Sony Vaio SZ" used to handle graphic cards. It
will be decided on boot.
Intel driver still panics when Xorg starts, but nvidia with nvidia
drivers works fine.

3- Touchpad: adding i8042.nopnp to kernel parameters did the trick for me too.


-- 
Farshad Khoshkhui