sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Adam Hill <sidepipeuk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Paolo,

> I'm running CentOS 5.5 (yeah, I know this is a Ubuntu list, but there's
> so much knowledge and expertise about Linux on VAIO Z series laptops
> here that I hope you will want to help me anyway, if you can)

	I wasn't aware that this was a Ubuntu specific list really! As far as I'm 
concerned all are welcome :).

> on a
> 2.6.35.1 kernel and Sony VAIO laptop np7 module patched as suggested by
> Adam. 

	There is a lot of fragmented info around ( probably because there is, as 
yet, no ideal solution ) and so there may be better answers ( or at least 
workarounds ) out there. However, the state of the Arrandale/Ironlake drivers 
in Linux is currently such that there really isn't an easy way that I know of 
to get the Intel card up and running on a 2.6.35 kernel other than if you 
happen to have a 1920x1080 panel and then I still don't know if this is 
applicable to anything other than the i7. ( I've got rid of the need for the 
printing of the dots by the way! )

	If you do fall in to that category though, and if others haven't got any 
other solutions, then my kernel should work for you. If so, I can just tar up 
the kernel and put it up so that you should be able to get it installed... I 
don't know about CentOS these days so I don't know what boot loader is used, 
but Grub 2 is necessary because the driver in the kernel obviously fails to 
initialise something, and so Grub2 is needed to get the console in to 
1920x1080 before the kernel is loaded... unless there is an equivalent of the 
"gfxpayload=keep" setting in Grub2.

	If this works for you then my own Z12 is running just fine with my kernel 
and Intel card - even though it is still a bit of a bodge, everything seems 
happy... KDE effects even work since 4.5.

	Unfortunately if you don't have the HD panel, then at the minute I'm not 
sure of a solution. I am constantly trying to prod Jesse at Intel and feed him 
as much info as possible so that in future this driver works with the VPC-Z, 
but although there is progress being made, it is slow. As soon as there is a 
proper fix, I will build the appropriate kernel so that people can use it 
ahead of incorporation in to the main line kernels, but I currently have no 
idea of time frames etc.

Adam.