Linux on Sony VAIO VGN-B100B 2005-03-07: Suspend to RAM configuration added. 2005-03-06: Added info about using an external display. 2005-02-22: Initial release.

• Sony Drivers For Vaio

Introduction Linux runs great on this laptop even though a few details (like DRI and the wireless network) are not perfect. You should not have any major problems installing and configuring your favorite Linux distribution on the laptop and this howto will highlight the potential problems that you might encounter. I have installed a source-based Linux distribution on this laptop in case you are wondering. Compatibility Matrix Subsystem Compatibility Driver(s) Comments Graphics Yes i830 (i915) Use the 855resolution tool for 1400x1050 resolution. Sound Yes ALSA sndintel8x0 Ethernet Yes e100 or eepro100 Wireless Yes Proprietary firmware necessary. CDRW/DVD Yes ide USB Yes uhcihcd, ehci-hcd IEEE1394 Yes ohci1394, ieee1394 Memory Stick Untested Modem Untested might work Specifications.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 5 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02) 00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corp. 5 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02) 00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corp. 5 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corp.

82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp.

Sony Drivers For Vaio

82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03) 02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller 02:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI7x20 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Controller 02:04.3 Unknown mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCI7420/PCI7620 Dual Socket CardBus and Smart Card Cont. W/ 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Cont. An 02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp.

82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 83) 02:0b.0 Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless 2200BG (rev 05) Installation This computer came with Windows XP preinstalled without any restore CD or DVD. You have to rely on the hidden partition that should be able to restore the system. Sony also provides utilities for creating a set of recovery CD but after I have decided to save myself time and troubles and bought a recovery DVD.

Knowing that the recovery DVD was in mail, I went ahead and begun installing Linux (Windows were not even booted:). If you need to keep Windows on your laptop, consider. Linux installation is straightforward: Simply put in your installation CD and proceed. Is a source distribution so I compiled everything from sources.

For the curious, the compiler flags were set to. CFLAGS='-O2 -pipe -march=pentium4m' CXXFLAGS='-O2 -pipe -march=pentium4m' LDFLAGS='-Wl,-s' Kernel At the time of writing this howto, I used the 2.6.10 kernel and you can The kernel was patched with version 2.1.5.15 of the in order to enable suspending to disk. Notes:. The CPU throttling allows to drop frequency down to 600 MHz. For the control of CPU frequency, I use the cpufreqd daemon. Enable ACPI and almost every option under it.

This is very important as ACPI is needed to regulate the CPU temperature. Without ACPI, your CPU will eventually get toasted. If you plan to use the sleep mode (ACPI S3), enable CONFIGACPISLEEP. SCSI emulation of cdrom drive is deprecated since approximately kernel 2.4.21. In fact, the ide-scsi driver does not work anymore. However, the ide driver works perfectly, even burning CDs although you may need to pass option dev=/dev/hdc to cdrecord.

Enable IEEE1394. You will need ohci1394, ieee1394 and sbp2 modules at least.

Enable wireless network option in the kernel configuration. Drivers for the Intel Pro 2200BG wireless card are under development in the. Apart from the ipw2200 driver, you will also need proprietary firmware which can be found on the project's web pages.

On my, I have replaced the built-in wireless adapter with another one for which open source drivers were available. I am guessing that it would be possible on this model too. ALSA sndintel8x0 driver works fine with the laptop's sound card.

Note that the sound is muted after you install the driver. Furthermore, that the external sound channel must be muted or no sound will be audible. Sonypi can be used to. Use e100 or eepro100 drivers for the integrated ethernet card. I do not observe any difference between the two.

X11 Configuration XFree86 4.4.0 including DRI works with the i830 driver and the configuration is quite straightforward except obtaining the 1400x1050 screen resolution. The VBIOS of Intel 855GM graphics adapter does not know this mode, the closest available mode is 1280x1024 but text and lines look fuzzy and are uncomfortable to watch. A solution is to add the 1400x1050 mode to the VBIOS shortly after boot by employing the utility.

During the boot process, one of the start-up scripts calls. Iwconfig $DEVICE mode '$MODE' iwconfig $DEVICE enc '$KEY' open iwconfig $DEVICE essid '$ESSID' Set the DEVICE, MODE, KEY, and ESSID variables to match your environment. Command iwconfig $DEVICE will show whether the association with an AP was successful or not. Suspend to RAM Suspend to RAM sleep mode saves the system state to the computer memory and, thus, it is much faster then suspend to disk. On the other hand, beware that suspend to RAM is still very experimental on Linux. A simple experiment have shown that my laptop can stay suspended in RAM for about 17 hours before the standard battery is depleted. This number was obtained by comparing the remaining battery capacity just before and after a suspend.

The laptop was suspended for 108 minutes while battery capacity dropped from 48840 mWh (fully charged) down to 43750 mWh which gives the maximum suspend time as little more than 17 hours. Wrote a detailed description about Ubuntu Linux on Sony VAIO TR Series laptops which provided me with enough information to configure the suspend to RAM feature. First, make sure that CONFIGACPISLEEP kernel option is on, then add the following line to the Device section of /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.