sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Wouter van der Graaf <wouter@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, I followed the instructions and I have successful hack of my bios.
Thank you!

I reinstalled stock Ubuntu 10.10 again on Stamina mode, and this time I
downloaded and installed the newest Natty kernel 2.6.37-9 instead. No
other changes. In Stamina, this works great. Even 3D (compiz) without
problem.

I haven't tried Speed mode yet. I'll let you know.

Thanks everyone contributing to this list!

Wouter


blackkane schreef op zo 12-12-2010 om 18:14 [+0100]:
> Hi Wouter,
> I resolve my graphic problem in a definite way through bios hack. I
> follow this instruction ("graphic switch" section):
> http://lowl.net/en/linux-on-vaio-vpc-z.html
> Regards, F.
> 
> 2010/12/10 Wouter van der Graaf <wouter@xxxxxxxxx>
>         Hi all,
>         
>         I have a new Viao Z13 (VPCZ13C5E) and I have 3 problems at the
>         mo. I
>         will explain my steps for installing Ubuntu 10.10 (maverick
>         meerkat),
>         but first the issues I'm having right now:
>         
>         1. Set switch to Stamina, boot, stamina LED is on, X comes up,
>         get the
>         Ubuntu gdm login screen, I type first characters of my
>         password. HELP!
>         After a short moment, total freeze of everything. Screen still
>         shows
>         login screen, but not responding to anything. No ctrl+alt+Fx
>         for
>         different tty, nothing! What's up with that?
>         
>         2. In Speed mode, boots successfully. Got sound working by
>         adding
>         'options snd-hda-intel model=sony-vaio-tt'
>         to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.
>         But microphone doesn't work with this configuration. The sound
>         problem
>         has to do with Adam's 2.6.37-6 kernel. Anyone got the
>         microphone
>         working?
>         
>         3. Also in Speed mode, I only get into gdm when I have
>         no /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. As soon as I run nvidia-xconfig
>         (which
>         generates it for me) and reboot, X doesn't come up and I get
>         tty
>         instead. I run new nvidia driver 260.19.26 from Ubuntu-X SWAT
>         ppa
>         package.
>         
>         Now the steps I took to get here:
>         
>         1. Unbox shiny new hardware, Sony Vaio VPCZ13C5E, Core i7, 8
>         GB RAM,
>         1920x1080 screen, WWAN modem, 128 GB RAID 0 array (2x64 GB).
>         
>         2. Boot Windows 7 to test all hardware components. Need to
>         make sure
>         it's all good. After that, I shrunk my Win 7 partition with
>         the included
>         admin tools. I then created 2 new volumes for Linux and Swap
>         partition.
>         I don't specify any drive letter or file system type for it,
>         so these
>         are 2 RAW partitions.
>         
>         3. Still in Windows, I download the 3 .deb packages for Linux
>         kernel
>         2.6.37-6 from http://www.voip-x.co.uk/files/adam/ and put them
>         in my
>         Downloads dir.
>         
>         4. Set switch to Speed (was Auto).
>         
>         5. Pop in Maverick 64 bit Live CD (USB actually). It boots
>         perfectly at
>         native 1920x1080 screen resolution, with working sound (due to
>         older
>         Maverick kernel). Installation application (ubiquity?) runs
>         without
>         problem. It even detects my factory default RAID 0 setup with
>         Windows 7
>         volumes and my 2 new empty volumes (making up total of 5
>         partitions). I
>         can choose the new partitions for ext4 with mount point '/'
>         and swap. I
>         choose the 'parent' mapper volume (the one without the
>         suffices in the
>         name) for boot loader installation. Installation successfully
>         completed!
>         Ready to reboot...
>         
>         6. Ouch, after reboot I get blank screen. No worries, trying
>         hard reset
>         and boot with nomodeset in grub bootloader entry. I get a
>         terminal.
>         
>         7. Now I can mount my Windows partition with 'sudo
>         mkdir /media/windows'
>         and 'sudo mount.ntfs-3g /dev/dm-4 /media/windows'. I copy the
>         debs from
>         my Windows partition to my Linux home dir. From there, I run
>         'sudo dpkg
>         -i *.deb' to install the packages. I see that GRUB is updated
>         with the
>         new kernel.
>         
>         8. Reboot (still on Speed mode)! Pick the new kernel. Yeah!
>         Enter gdm
>         login. Screen looks good. I can now enter gnome and do stuff.
>         Webcam
>         works normally. No sound, though. In sound properties I only
>         see the
>         HDMI device, not the Realtek ALC889 I was also expecting.
>         
>         9. Add 'options snd-hda-intel model=sony-vaio-tt'
>         to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base. Reboot. Sound works now! But
>         microphone
>         still doesn't work. It does show up in the sound properties
>         input
>         sources (mic 1, mic 2 and line), but it's not listening.
>         
>         10. Now for the nvidia driver. As recommended on
>         https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia I
>         remove
>         package xserver-xorg-video-nouveau from my system.
>         
>         11. After reading about problems with the nvidia 260.x driver
>         and
>         finding that these should be fixed with version 260.19.26 I
>         installed
>         this version with the newer package nvidia-current from
>         https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates.
>         I added
>         their ppa to my software sources and install nivdia-current
>         from
>         Synaptic package manager. Reboot!
>         
>         12. It seems to work. I log into Ubuntu and I check the
>         'Additional
>         drivers' application from the system/administration menu to
>         see if the
>         new driver is active. It is active and in use, it says. Then I
>         try to
>         turn on the Compiz graphical effects, but after some waiting
>         it just
>         says there was a problem and it couldn't activate effects.
>         Bummer.
>         
>         13. So I read on the BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia page that you
>         may have to
>         run 'sudo nvidia-xconfig'. I run it from the terminal and it
>         generates a
>         file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which wasn't there before.
>         
>         14. Reboot again. Now definitely something happened. This time
>         I get
>         thrown to a tty instead of X. So it seems the nvidia driver
>         started
>         loading, but couldn't initialize or something. I read
>         https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NvidiaOnSonyLaptop about
>         having to use
>         a Custom EDID file for Sony Vaio displays.
>         
>         15. Windows again. I use the Windows application
>         http://www.entechtaiwan.com/lib/softmccs.shtm to extract the
>         EDID binary
>         to my disk. I reboot into Linux (tty) and put the file
>         in /etc/X11/edid.bin. Then I create a new xorg.conf with the
>         following:
>         
>         Section "Device"
>           Identifier "Device0"
>           Driver     "nvidia"
>           VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
>           Option     "ConnectedMonitor"   "DFP-0"
>           Option     "CustomEDID"         "DFP-0:/etc/X11/edid.bin"
>         EndSection
>         
>         16. Reboot, hoping this will work. No, it doesn't. Now what do
>         I have to
>         do? Can't find any more info on the web, or don't know how to
>         search for
>         it.
>         
>         17. Removing xorg.conf makes my Speed mode Ubuntu enter gdm
>         just fine
>         again, without 3D graphics though (and some flickering stripy
>         artifacts
>         occasionally). I'm also not sure it's actually using the
>         nvidia driver.
>         But I uninstalled nouveau, so how to tell?
>         
>         17. Try Stamina this time. Set switch to Stamina, boot,
>         stamina LED is
>         on, X comes up, get the Ubuntu gdm login screen, I type first
>         characters
>         of my password. HELP! After a short moment, total freeze of
>         everything.
>         Screen still shows login screen, but not responding to
>         anything. No ctrl
>         +alt+Fx for different tty, nothing! What's up with that?
>         
>         18. So this is the situation I'm in. I have a working Speed
>         mode,
>         without fully working nvidia drivers and microphone. And I
>         have a
>         Stamina mode that halts some seconds after gdm login screen
>         appears.
>         What can I do to get these issues resolved? Anyone?
>         
>         Thanks in advance,
>         
>         Wouter
>         
>         
>         --
>         Wouter van der Graaf
>         entreprogrammeur and senior web developer
>         
>         d y n o r a
>         web developers ~ both ends technology, interaction and
>         aesthetics
>         
>         +31 (0)6 2893 0615 | wouter@xxxxxxxxx
>         
>         Burg. de Bruïnelaan 95 | 3331 AC Zwijndrecht | NL
>         +31 (0)78 843 3139 | contact@xxxxxxxxx | www.dynora.nl
>         
>         
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