Installing Linux on a Sony Vaio Z505SX notebook

Note that I will only explain what I have been doing, I'm not trying to write a tutorial. If you are using another Linux distribution, other settings, or even other hardware, your mileage may vary.

Please send comments, additions, corrections, and updated information to edi(at)agharta(dot)de. I will try to keep the page updated. Please feel free to correct my English, too. I'm not a native speaker.

I have switched to IBM Thinkpads (T21, T23, now T42p), so this page will no longer be actively maintained by me.

Contents

• Disclaimer
• The hardware
• Useful links
• Which distribution?
• Re-partitioning the hard disk
• Installation with or without a CD-ROM drive
• How to boot your new Linux system
• Using X and other basic stuff
• The BIOS
• Memory Stick
• My kernel
• Power Management (and your Ethernet card)
• A nice text console
• IrDA and my cell phone
• Keyboard settings
• The Touchpad
• Sound
• NEW: Modem
• PCMCIA
• USB
• FireWire
• Port replicator
• Tuning your hard disk
• Update: SuSE 6.3
• My opinion
• Credits

Disclaimer

The hardware

Please note that the Z505 series models are different from other 505 models. If you have one of these machines or another Vaio laptop, this is probably not the right place for you. The other Z505 models (RX, R, and S) are more or less the same, but I've heard that there are slight differences.

Useful links

• My main source of information was the wonderful website "Linux on Laptops". Besides many other things, it also includes links to other sites that describe running Linux on Z505 notebooxs.
• "The Sony Vaio 505 Page" is the homepage of a very busy mailing list. It is not Linux-specific, but it is worth a try.
• You will find many helpful people in the various Linux newsgroups. A good starting point is comp.os.linux.portable.
• If you don't want to use the pre-installed Windows software at all, you might be entitled to a refund. You should check "The Linux Mall" before you turn on your computer for the first time.

Which distribution?

Of course, you will also be able to install Linux on your Z505 with other distributions, but many of the things that I'm describing here might be specific to SuSE 6.1.

Re-partitioning the hard disk

First, you should ask Windows to defragment your hard disk. (This might take a couple of hours.) Also, you should temporarily disable virtual memory because Windows might use the end of your partition for this task. Afterwards, you can use fips to change the size of the Windows partition and add new partitions for Linux. I chose 2 GB for Windows, a 128 MB swap partition for Linux, and devoted the rest to the root mounting point. As a couple of people have pointed out, altering the /dev/hda4 partition is not recommended since it is used by the BIOS hibernation feature. (If you accidentally removed or damaged this partition, these notes from Erez Strauss might help you.)

Note that fips 1.5 didn't work for me, I had to use the 2.0 version. Both versions are provided as part of the "dosutils" of the SuSE distribution. (SuSE recommends to use the 1.5 version...)

Installation with or without a CD-ROM drive

First, you will need another Linux/Unix machine with a CD-ROM drive and an Ethernet connection. Insert the first SuSE CD into this drive, mount it and export this directory via NFS. Make sure you know the necessary TCP/IP settings to connect to this machine.

Put the Linux boot floppy into your floppy drive, connect the drive to your Vaio, connect the Vaio to your Ethernet, and turn on the computer. Please be patient. Booting Linux from a floppy disk took more than ten minutes on my Vaio - no kidding. (This might be due to the USB connection, due to the Sony floppy drive, or maybe it is just my personal bad luck with the hardware that I've bought...)

Before you can start the installation, you will have to load the right network kernel module. You need the "eepro 100" module. That's it, you can now follow the SuSE instructions. (If you have to change CDs during installation, you will have to unmount, change the CD, and mount again on the machine that's exporting your directory.)

If you have a Sony CD-ROM drive, you can directly boot from the first SuSE CD-ROM to start the installation. You must answer "linux ide2=0x180,0x386" to the "boot:" prompt (i.e. pass these parameters to the kernel) to make this work.

How to boot your new Linux system

I didn't have a CD-ROM drive (did I mention that already?) so I had to choose another solution. I tried loadlin and the Windows boot menu. Everything worked fine until I started to fiddle with autoexec.bat, config.sys, and all that stuff. The result was that I couldn't use Windows anymore, and so I decided to install lilo. The reason why I'm bothering you with this story is that I was able to reanimate Windows afterwards, and now I have a working dual-boot setup without the need to re-install Windows. The conclusion might be that installing lilo in your MBR (using SuSE's yast) won't prevent you from deploying Windows even if you don't have a CD-ROM drive. As I said in the disclaimer, your mileage may vary...

Some people have reported kernel panics at boot time. I never had these problems, maybe because I added

	append "mem=128M"

[Update: William Cattey recommends disabling the lilo timeout and not putting the "append" line in your /etc/lilo.conf if the procedure described above doesn't work for you.]

Using X and other basic stuff

You can use gpm without any problems. You're using a PS/2 mouse.

The BIOS

Memory Stick

My kernel

Power Management (and your Ethernet card)

In order to be able to shut down your notebook with the halt or shutdown -h command, you will have to change your shutdown script /sbin/init.d/halt. Just add the option "-p":

...
case "$0" in
        *halt)
                message="The system is halted."
                command="halt -p"
                ;;
        *reboot)
...

Blanking the screen (video suspend) will work fine with your console. In order to make it work with X you will need to use a tool like xcnf (provided by SuSE). Alternatively, you can change your XF86Config settings. Here is what Reiner Klenk proposed in comp.os.linux.portable:

add	Option	"power_saver" to Section "Device"

add	BlankTime	10
	StandbyTime	11
	SuspendTime	12
	OffTime	15	to Section "Screen"

The 3.0 version of apmd will also provide you with an apmd_proxy feature in your /etc directory. This is what I added to make my Ethernet card work after a suspend or hibernate event:

	...
	# other common actions:  reload troublesome drivers
	# EXAMPLE: reload OSS sound drivers.  Path may vary.
	#	/usr/local/bin/soundon
	if [ $2 = suspend ] || [ $2 = critical ]; then
	    /sbin/init.d/network restart
	    /sbin/init.d/route start
	fi
	;;
	...

[Harald Ganziger told me that restarting /sbin/init.d/dhclient will work in case you're using DHCP.]

You will also have problems with your Ethernet card after a warm reboot from Windows. (Windows is leaving your chip in suspended state.) Therefore, I recommend to do a cold reboot after using Windows 98. Please note that Donald Becker, the author of the eepro 100 driver, is aware of these problems and that they'll be fixed in future releases of Linux. (An alternative solution can be found on this page.)

A nice text console

IrDA and my cell phone

I am using a 2.2.12 kernel and I also applied the latest IrDA patch although I don't think this was really necessary. You will also need a recent version of the Linux/IrDA-Utils.

After you've compiled and installed the software, you will have to create the devices that you need. You only have to do this once:

	mknod /dev/ircomm c 161 0
	mknod /dev/ircomm0 c 161 0
	mknod /dev/ircomm1 c 161 1

The kernel assigns interrupt 4 to /dev/ttyS2 although the BIOS wants interrupt 10 by default. To correct this, you'll have to say

	setserial /dev/ttyS2 irq 10

	alias tty-ldisc-11 irtty
	alias char-major-161 ircomm-tty

If you have installed the IrDA software correctly, you will now have a file /etc/irda/drivers. Edit it to look like

	...
	'start')
		irattach /dev/ttyS2
	;;
	...

What remains to be done is to start a PPP connection to your ISP. This is described in detail in the Linux PPP HOWTO, you just have to use /dev/ircomm instead of /dev/modem. (And if you usually connect to the Internet through a gateway on your LAN you have to delete your default route before you start.) If you think you need further assistance, you can take a look at my /etc/ppp/ directory.

If you want to try something similar yourself, good places to start are the Linux IR HOWTO and the archive of the Linux-IrDA mailing list.

Keyboard settings

Add the following lines to the end of your console keyboard layout (us.map.gz):

	keycode 125 = AltGr
	keycode 127 = AltGr
	keymaps 0-4
	keycode 30 = +a +A adiaeresis Adiaeresis Control_a
	keycode 24 = +o +O odiaeresis Odiaeresis Control_o
	keycode 22 = +u +U udiaeresis Udiaeresis Control_u
	keycode 31 = +s +S ssharp ssharp Control_s

To get the same result under X, you'll have to add these lines to your Xmodmap:

	keycode 115 = Mode_switch
	keycode 117 = Mode_switch
	keycode 38 = a A adiaeresis Adiaeresis 
	keycode 32 = o O odiaeresis Odiaeresis
	keycode 30 = u U udiaeresis Udiaeresis
	keycode 39 = s S ssharp
	clear Mod2
	add Mod2 = Mode_switch

The Touchpad

Sound

However, you don't have to pay for sound support! A nice guy has written a driver for the Neomagic card. To get it, you either have to use a new kernel (2.2.13 or higher) or you have to patch your old kernel.

If you've never patched your kernel before, here are some instructions:

1. Download the patch and put it into your /tmp directory.
2. cd /usr/src/linux
3. patch -b -p1 < /tmp/sony-patch-2.2.11 2> out
   (The -b option will make a backup of your original files.)
4. Check the out file to see if you got any error messages.
5. Compile a new kernel and new modules (as described in the SuSE manual).

#alias char-major-14 off
#alias sound off
#alias midi off
alias char-major-14 nm256av
post-install nm256av /usr/bin/aumix -v 100,100

That's it. You should have sound now...

Modem

Update: A French company named Olitec has released binary-only drivers for their modems that - according to some reports on the above-mentioned mailing list (check the archives) - might work with the Vaio modem. They started with a release that worked with RedHat 6.2 exclusively, but now they seem to offer different versions for 2.2.14, 2.2.16, and 2.2.17 kernels as well. I haven't tried it myself. If somebody is able to successfully use his modem with these drivers, I'd be glad to post his report here.

PCMCIA

	PCMCIA_PCIC_OPTS="cs_irq=11"

You can now mount CD-ROMs with something like 'mount -t iso9660 /dev/hde /cdrom' if you're using Sony's CD-ROM drive.

[A side note for SuSE users: I've installed a newer version (3.1.4) of the PCMCIA package. Unfortunately, the Makefile will recognize Red Hat, Debian, and Slackware, but NOT SuSE. Thus, it will overwrite SuSE's "pcmcia" start script in /sbin/init.d, and - as a result - the new script won't source /etc/rc.config anymore. I suggest that you simply reinstall the old script after upgrading the PCMCIA package.]

More information about PCMCIA can be found at the Linux PCMCIA information page.

USB

General USB information can be found on this website.

FireWire

Port replicator

Tuning your hard disk

The hard disk can be made about three times faster with "hdparm -c3 -m16 -d1 /dev/hda". Even better results can be achieved by -c2 instead of -c3 but the man page states that this is not safe. Erez reports that -X34 crashed his system (Z505RX).

You can test your hard disk with "hdparm -t -T /dev/hda" before and after you apply the new parameters. If you want to make these changes permanent, put them into your boot.local file. And, before you begin: RTFM!!

Update: SuSE 6.3

• You should be able to find all the stuff that's described here as part of the distribution and you can easily install it with yast. Make sure to install the APM, PCMCIA, and USB packages if you want to deploy these features. Also, make the necessary chances to the well-documented /etc/rc.config file.
• You still need to add the four lines regarding your network to the apmd_proxy script (which lives in /sbin/init.d/ if you're using SuSE 6.3). I also recommend to set SET_CLOCK_ON_RESUME, LEAVE_X_BEFORE_SUSPEND, and LEAVE_X_BEFORE_STANDBY to "yes" in /etc/rc.config.d/apmd.rc.config. Screen blanking under X works fine without further adjustment.
• The sections about the text console and the keyboard settings (if you need them) still apply.
• For PCMCIA, it suffices to set the PCMCIA_PCIC_OPTS value. Forget the remark about the start script above.
• For USB, I just said "mknod /dev/usbmouse c 10 32" and added "alias char-major-10-32 usb-uhci" to /etc/conf.modules. I also added these lines to /etc/XF86config:

  Section "Xinput"
      SubSection "Mouse"
          Protocol        "IMPS/2"
          DeviceName      "USB Mouse"
          Port            "/dev/usbmouse"
          Buttons         5
          ZAxisMapping    4 5
          AlwaysCore
      EndSubSection
  EndSection
  

  I'm using a Microsoft IntelliEye wheelmouse and it works fine with X - you can even use your trackpad at the same time. (Use "PS/2" as your mouse protocol if you don't have a wheelmouse.) Just keep in mind to plug your mouse into your Vaio before you start an X session or boot with xdm/kdm! By the way, for wheelmice I can really recommend Colas Nahaboo's website.

  FYI: The USB code in SuSE's kernel is a backport from the 2.3.x kernel tree.

  Remark: If you're not using SuSE, you might also have to add

      Section "ServerFlags"
          AllowMouseOpenFail
      EndSection
  

  to your XF86Config file in order to allow your X server to start without your USB mouse.

  Update: There are several ways to overcome the problem I mentioned above, i.e. you CAN use two mice (built-in trackpad plus external USB mouse) and disconnect and re-connect them while X is running. One solution, sent by Jason Bishop, uses GPMs 'gpmdata' facility. The GPM distribution even includes a couple of (unsupported) patches that will enable support for wheelmice.

  An alternative solution is to use XFree86 4 which supports using several mice at once. This is the setup I'm using now and it works fine for me. See Jochen Topf's Vaio page for details. (Mr. Topf is also the author of one of the GPM patches, by the way.)

• For IrDA support according to my SH888 example, just set IRDA_PORT to /dev/ttyS2, and IRDA_IRQ to 10 in /etc/rc.config. Forget the rest of what I wrote above.
• For sound, just edit your /etc/conf.modules as shown above. No need to patch your kernel anymore.

My opinion

• It's a shame that Sony and other manufacturers sneak in WinModems and don't tell the truth about these devices in their ads. What especially bugs me about Sony is that they treat their customers like children and don't consider supporting any other operating system than Windows 98 - not even NT - on their Vaios.
• I can really recommend buying the triple-capacity battery because under Linux it can provide you with more than five hours of battery life. The drawback, however, is that it will destroy the Vaio's slick design and significantly increase its weight.
• The Ethernet interface doesn't offer a built-in RJ-45 jack (like on Apple PowerBooks) but needs a small external adapter. I'm quite sure this little thingy will break in a couple of months.
• Why doesn't Sony sell these machines in Europe?

  Update: Daniel Mettler has talked to some Sony people in Switzerland. They don't seem to have plans for offering the Z505 models (or any other variant with 12.1'' monitors) in Europe.

  Another update: They finally seem to offer similar, albeit not identical, models in Europe. Take a look at their online shop for further information.

Credits

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