Debian GNU/Linux on Sony Vaio PCG-Z1SP

It works (of course!) and the 2.4.22 kernel I use allow me to use throttling (the performance states are not working, I get "acpi_processor-1095 [32] acpi_processor_set_per: Transition failed" instead of the expected behaviour).

I tried earlier to use Intel's processor.o (see their ACPI download page), but failed by omitting the -f option of insmod. I now use it, and it works perfectly.

With the processor.o from the kernel sources:

ACPI: AC Adapter [ACAD] (on-line)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery present)
ACPI: Lid Switch [LID0]
ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]
ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports C1 C2, 6 performance states, 8 throttling states)
ACPI: Thermal Zone [ATF0] (37 C)
	

With Intel's processor.o:

ACPI: AC Adapter [ACAD] (on-line)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery present)
ACPI: Lid Switch [LID0]
ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]
ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports C1 C2, 6 performance states (Native), 8 throttling states)
ACPI: Thermal Zone [ATF0] (39 C)
	

I use acpid to power off and on the screen backlight, I added /etc/acpi/events/lid, created the /etc/acpi/lid.sh script, compiled and installed radeontool.

The main issue I have is that the computer stay awake after a shutdown, the screen is powered off, but I have to press a few seconds on the power button to power down the whole machine. I modified /etc/init.d/halt to force the S5 sleep mode in ACPI, but a fix will be in 2.4.22-pre9, so I applied the proposed patch and revert /etc/init.d/halt to its original version.

Update, 2.4.22 is out but for older kernels, here is the patch Willy Tarreau sent to linux-kernel.

Update again. Nils sent me an email pointing me to a post on linux.kernel. Unsetting CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC in the kernel configuration cause the system to shutdown properly. I suspect that the ACPI_DISABLE_IRQS(); call in acpi_power_off is just hanging and prevent the kernel to enter sleep state S5 (power off).

Another note: Depending on the power source, the bogomips value reported at boot vary from 1186.20 on battery to 2968.70 on AC. Is this behaviour caused by the BIOS or the DSDT?

Status: ok (see above)

Works well with the e100 module. As it works and I don't use it very often, it's enough.

Status: ok

Intel just released a driver. It is under development, so more functionalities are expected (like Ad-Hoc mode),and it is not mean to be stable.

However, I tried it with kernel 2.6.4 (external build, with "legacy" firmware loading mode) and it works pretty well. Version 0.30 was not working in closed WiFi networks, but 0.34 if ok with that.

I will need to polish some scripts for that, as I manually start dhcp and set some parameters for now.

I still carry my old Orinoco PCMCIA card, just in case something goes wrong (it happened one time with 0.30)

Status: Partially ok

With the ehci-hcd module, I can access my external disk, and with the usb-uhci module, I can see (and use) the memory stick and bluetooth. See below the output of lsusb:

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 054c:0069 Sony Corp. Memorystick MSC-U03 Reader
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 044e:3003 Alps Electric Co., Ltd 
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
	

Status: ok

I have a Sony camera, so I will not have to carry the USB cable on my next trips. The reader is seen when the usb-uhci is loaded, with usb-storage, the /dev/sda disk is available, and I just had to create an entry in /etc/fstab to mount it user,noauto as a msdos file system.

Status: ok

It works well also, I was able to use my cellphone as a remote control, using bluexmms. See the kernel .config above. Using Debian Sarge (testing), I was unable to locate the bluez-utils package, so I downloaded it from the BlueZ Debian download page. Useful to debug and test.

Status: ok

It is a yenta socket bridge, so be sure to have PCIC="yenta_socket" in your /etc/default/pcmcia.

Status: ok

It works well with Xfree 4.2 using the radeon driver, but the backlight is always on. I tried Xfree 4.3 to see if this was solved with no luck. I then decided to patch the driver myself "the hard way", and it works perfectly now. you can download and replace your /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.o (built from Debian sources xfree86_4.2.1-6, from Sarge, 29/Jul/2003, here is the diff). The latest diff is dated 10 Sep 2003, in previous versions, a bug was preventing external display to work as expected.

Also, I was unable to have direct rendering working. If someone has the solution...

Update: Nils got it right, he gave me his XF86Config-4, but apparently it will work only when Debian will move from 4.2.1.1 to 4.3.0...

Also I have to remove xfstt, as it was preventing me to start X (endless loop, or extremely time and cpu consuming startup).

You can read my XF86Config-4.

I am currently working (when I can find some spare time) on a tool to use the function keys. I am using the sonypi driver to intercept the events, and libxosd for the display part. Here is a binary snapshot that only sets the brightness. (I wrote the code in ten minutes, it is too ugly to publish it yet :) ).

Status: almost ok

I tried ALSA, but it failed in 2.4 , so I am using the OSS i810_audio module. Here is the entry in /etc/modules.conf (in fact, in /etc/moduils/oss, as /etc/modules.conf is generated with update-modules or update-modules.modutils).

alias sound-slot-0 i810_audio 
options i810_audio clocking=48000
post-install sound-slot-0 /usr/bin/aumix -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
pre-remove sound-slot-0 /usr/bin/aumix -S >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
	

David reported to me that the sound was cutting sometime, this behaviour is linked to X activity. It turned out that the new O(1) schedulers were the cause, so a quick fix was to fix the nice level of X from -10 to 0 in /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config.

Status: ok

lspci reports a Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Modem (rev 03). I installed the source version of the HSF linmodem from Linuxant. Everything went ok, it auto-detected the modem. I did not test it yet, as I usually connect via Wireless anyway, or bluetooth now that I have it working.

Status: ok (I hope)