Model: Sony
Vaio VGN SZ61 MN/B
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 Ghz
Graphics: Nvidia Geforce 8400 GS, 64 MB, 1280x800 on 13"
Sound: ALSA compatible
Network (wired): Marvell 100 Mbit
Network (wireless): Intel 54 Mbit
Bluetooth: yes
Webcam: yes
Modem: yes (untested)
Media: DVD writer
In 2007-12, I bought my Sony Vaio VGN SZ61 MN/B to replace my aging Toshiba Satellite 2410. It may be a bit early to write a review since the Linux community has not had much time to adapt to the relatively new device. Overall, I am moderately satisfied, having the following minor issues:
spicctrl 1 has no effect.xbacklight).Both wireless lan and bluetooth as well as the Nvidia graphics worked out of the box, which I had not expected. Currently, I run Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) under a 2.6.24 kernel.
I am not sure what to make of the never-shut-up fan. The noise is so low it does not bother me, but the implications for power saving do. Even with 800 Mhz processor and 965GM graphics it is still running.
2008-08: After a nice email exchange with a guy named Brian
Vaughan, I got both the internal microphone (easy, just a few settings)
and the webcam to work; the latter required driver install from
semi-trusted sources.
2008-07: I got a nice mail from a guy named Sebastian Pohl,
who was in discussion with the ACPI guys, and solved his screen
brightness adjustment problem, albeit only for the internal graphics
card (for Nvidia, the problem remains).
2008-06: Wanting to listen to music by headphones, I
discovered the headphone jack does not work by default. The problem was
caused by faulty Alsa installation routines, and could be fixed.
2008-04: Upgraded to Hardy Heron. Bluetooth exploring my
mobile phone (WM6) immediately got a bit better: I can see a folders
content, but cannot download or upload files.
The fan is always running; most times in slow mode. To keep it that way, I wanted to underclock the notebook as much as possible, because I normally do not need the processing power. Thanks to Michael Weingärtner [de]:
sudo su
chmod +s /usr/bin/cpufreq-selector
This enables setting the CPU frequency; otherwise, you can only see it. And now the control:
Panel->Add to Panel->CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor
CPU Freq Monitor->Conservative
CPU Freq Monitor->800 Mhz
Or alternatively, via the command line:
cpufreq-selector -g Conservative
cpufreq-selector -f 800
The conservative setting is mostly sufficient; only if I start up my programming IDE or other intensive tasks, the CPU goes up to 2 Ghz; small spikes leave the CPU still at 800 Mhz.
Something that always annoys me with touchpads is the "one touch means click" behaviour, which encourages weird mouse clicks while typing. Buth this is cureable (thanks to Peter Österlund from Xorg):
nano -w /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
# ...
# To avoid tap counting as click:
Option
"MaxTapTime"
"0"
Peter is the maintainer for the Synaptics for XFree86/XOrg; his site contains a lot more useful tips.
Bluetooth works out of the box, but you need a small bit of editing to get a bluetooth mouse to work (thanks to Burkey in the Ubuntu forums):
nano -w /etc/default/bluetooth
HIDD_ENABLED=1
This enables input devices. And then you need to bind the mouse in question:
/etc/init.d/bluetooth restart
hcitool scan
hidd --connect 00:00:00:00:00:00
Where you connect to your mouse bluetooth ID given by the scan
command. One odd note: If I do something else with bluetooth (like
browsing my mobile phone), the mouse lags horrribly. Thankfully, I
still got the touchpad for this.
Wanting to browse my mobile phone with Ubuntu, I installed the obex FTP protocol:
apt-get install gnome-vfs-obexftp
# libopenobex1 obexftp
Then, I tried to get files to/from the phone:
Bluetooth Icon->Right Click->Browse Device
XDA Orbit (My Bluetooth Name)
With my XDA Orbit, this did not work (unlike with my Apple iMac, which does the same thing flawlessly). Since 2008-07, I own an XDA Diamond, and now it works, although both are running Windows Mobile 6. Strange, but good.
The motion eye camera does not work out of the box, the reason being
that the drivers are not functional. According to Brian Vaughan
(thanks!), patched drivers can be retrieved from the french Arakhne website
(select "Browse", then into the "2.6.24.19-generic"
or your uname -r subdir, only one file available there).
dpkg -i
ricoh-webcam-r5u870-2.6.24-19-generic_0.11.0-2arakhne1_i386.deb
After driver install, load the kernel module:
modprobe r5u870
Video applications can be picky about whether they want to accept the camera. However, the classic xawtv does work.
apt-get install xawtv
xawtv
Camorama and cheese do not work, but Ekiga softphone (and Skype!) do. Good luck with your favourite application.
The Nvidia corporation provides binary drivers for Linux, and also an installer, which is pretty nice (but I did not need to use it). Ubuntu provides a Restricted Drivers Manager, which takes care of everything.
System->Administration->Restricted Drivers Manager
NVidia accelerated driver: yes
Then reboot and you have Nvidia. Use Preferences->Screen
Resolution for 1280x800 and you are set.
The Sony Vaio SZ series has the extremely cool feature of two graphic cards: The Nvidia 8400 GS (for power) and the onboard Intel 965GM (for power save). I wanted to configure Ubuntu such that the current card is automatically detected and the appropriate X configuration is being started.
cd /etc/X11
cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.nvidia
cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.intel
Then, reboot in each of the two modes, switch to console with
Ctrl+Alt+F2, reconfigure X, and copy xorg.conf over the
appropriate file.
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
And now, we need a script which takes care of the selecting.
According to several sources, this used to be easier with previous SZ
notebooks. Nowadays, the proprietary Nvidia driver overwrites some glx
files, making this a bit of a mess:
nano -w /etc/init.d/dynamic-video-card
#!/bin/sh
VIDEO=`/usr/bin/lspci |grep -c nVidia`
if [ "$VIDEO" = 1 ]; then
echo "Sony Vaio SZ61 MN/B: Changing to nVidia
graphics."
cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nvidia
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
if [ ! -f /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so ];
then
apt-get install nvidia-glx-new
fi
else
echo "Sony Vaio SZ61 MN/B: Changing to Intel
graphics."
cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf.intel
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
if [ -f /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so ];
then
apt-get remove nvidia-glx-new
fi
fi
Currently, I have added a reboot behind the apt-get
install nvidia-glx-new; for unknown reasons, it fails otherwise.
There is also one last step: Start it when system boots.
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/dynamic-video-card
ln -s /etc/init.d/dynamic-video-card /etc/rc2.d/S12xorg_conf
After making the script executable, I add it to the runlevel 2 boot
scripts. The low number (S12) ensures that it is run before
other X scripts (e.g gdm).
Sound output works nicely out of the box. Later on, I will test the line-in.
One flaw is that line-out (for headphones) does not work. This is
the fault of alsa-conf, and can be solved as described by Michael
Doube:
nano -w /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-hda-intel model=vaio
To get the internal microphone to work (thanks to Brian Vaughan for
the tip), right-click on the Volume Control icon (upper right toolbar)
and select "Open Volume Control", then Edit->Preferences.
Activate Master, PCM, PCM Capture, Capture and Internal Mic.
Back on the Volume Control, in the Tab "Switches", deactivate the
current choice and activate "Internal Mic". Testing the microphone can
be done with Applications->Sound
& Video->Sound Recorder. The mic is located on the upper
right corner above the TFT.
Besides the ACPI controls (note: on the SZ61, the brightness
controls do nothing, see /etc/acpi/sonybright.sh), there is
the spicctrl program for Sony notebooks.
apt-get install spicctrl
spicctrl
spicctrl -b 100
Unfortunately, this does not work either. And I brought the box to a
freeze once while trying to fumble with it. However, in July 2008, I
was informed by Sebastian
Pohl that xbacklight may be an
alternative (according
to Michael
Doube):
apt-get install xbacklight
After installing it, we need to fix a bad XRandR setting (to be
repeated for each boot via /etc/rc.local; you can also do
this from command line):
nano -w /etc/rc.local
xrandr --output LVDS --set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL native
/etc/init.d/acpid restart
And now we can set the screen brightness per command line (the parameter is the percentage).
xbacklight -set 50
To make adjustments available via the Fn keys, the
above mentioned sonybright.sh file needs to be replaced.
nano -w /etc/acpi/sonybright.sh
#!/bin/bash
BRIGHTNESS=`xbacklight -get | cut -d "." -f 1`
if [ "x$1" = "xdown" ]; then
if [ $BRIGHTNESS -gt 10 ]; then
xbacklight -time 100 -steps 10
-dec 10 2>/tmp/sonybright.log
fi
elif [ "x$1" = "xup" ]; then
xbacklight -time 100 -steps 10 -inc 10
2>/tmp/sonybright.log
else
echo >&2 Unknown argument $1
fi
And then it works. Note the dimming check: Otherwise it is possible to turn the backlight completely off when pressing rapid fire on Fn+BrightnessDown, and it is then not possible to turn it back on again.
If you have OpenVPN (or other network extra stuff) running like I do, you might want to modify the suspend mechanism a bit.
nano -w /etc/default/acpi-support
STOP_SERVICES="openvpn"
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=true
And then restart ACPI.
/etc/init.d/acpid restart
This way, resume will properly restart OpenVPN.
The following open ends remain:
I am curious whether the Nvidia/suspend problem will ever vanish.
The Sony Vaio VGN SZ61 MN/B is something I can live with. Though the always running fan makes it less than ideal for power saving purposes, most important devices work out of the box. Integrated webcam drivers and suspend with Nvidia would be nice touches if possible in further Ubuntu versions.
With that, I hope this article could help or inform you a little
bit. If you have any questions or comments, you can reach me via email
to kain at the above domain. Thanks for leaving a part of
your attention span here, and have a good day!
Last Update: 2008-08-05. This article is listed at TuxMobil.
EOF (Aug:2008)