sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Justin Karneges <justin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Adam,

On Friday 06 August 2010 00:16:48 Adam Hill wrote:
> 	The issue is with the graphics, though there are workarounds. If you boot
> an old kernel first then you can use the NVidia card without problems. The
> Intel card seems to work ( for me at least ) when booting a KUbuntu live
> CD, but then doesn't work if you boot using Grub2. I've managed to get it
> running on my machine with a custom kernel, with i7 and 1920x1080 panel, so
> if you have those then it can be made to work and you can use either video
> card.

When booting with an old kernel (for Nvidia) or Kubuntu (for Intel), does it 
matter what position the physical switch is in?  Do the OS's actually read 
the switch value or do these each find their respective card and initialize 
it regardless of the switch?

Related question: does the BIOS even care about the switch position or is that 
only an OS thing?

> > 2) Can someone explain the default raid setup?  I think it is Raid 0
> > which allows multiple hard disks to appear as a single unit?  Mine is the
> > 128GB model which I think means two 64GB disks.  And this is a problem
> > for grub 2? Is that the only incompatibility?
>
> 	Mine had 4x64Gb drives in RAID0, but other models have 2x128Gb also in
> RAID0. Unless you get rid of the RAID set-up, you HAVE to use grub2.

What layer does the RAID0 reside at?  If it's a hardware/BIOS thing, shouldn't 
it be invisible to the bootloader?

> > 3) What is the definitive howto document?
[...]
> 	There isn't really one at the moment for the VPC-Z, and my kernel
> solution is only a hack!

The solution is here?  http://www.voip-x.co.uk/files/adam/

In the readme you mention that the intel solution is complicated but it does 
seem the most promising, yes?  At least, it doesn't require that silly 
old-kernel-reboot trick like the nvidia does.  If I follow your instructions 
to use intel, does this mean the nvidia card is powered off?

-Justin