Linux users of Sony Z1 series

[Brouard Nicolas <>]

Le jeudi 28 octobre 2004 à 21:00 +0200, 

 a écrit :
> Hi guys,
> With Mandrake Linux 10.0 and ndiswrapper module for wireless Intel
> 2200 chip I experience a delay of about 1 min when the boot sequence
> sniffs the environment for a wireless network and does not find it
> (e.g. it does not exist or wireless chip is powered off). Quite
> annoying waiting if you know that there is no wireless network and
> eth0 is already up. Anyone knows how to make the machine recognise
> that the chip is powered off and no need to try wlan0 up (or at least
> to decrease the response wait time)? Does ipw2200 module if you use it
> has the same type of behaviour compared to the good-old ndiswrapper I
> described?
> Thanks!
I haven't tested ip2200 yet.

> PS. Nicolas, is it your experience with tweaking ML10.1 that made you
> put everything in big bold on

> http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard/sony/#h-4 ? ;-)

Thanks, I corrected the typos. But I updated the page and probably added
other typos...

> Was it worth upgrading from 10.0?

I have upgraded my Sony Z1 with Mandrake 10.1 Official from the Install
CD.

I already mentioned some problems while upgrading to 10.1 Community,
like udev which replaces devfs, xorg which replaces Xfree etc.

I got only a problem because my /etc/lilo.conf has been changed and my
swap partition has been replaced by an other partition which was
imbedded in a volume group (I am using LVM) and I couldn't suspend
anymore.

Yes, the good news is that I am able to use my laptop nicely again. And
it is able to suspend to disk nicely.

But you can't have these features with the standard Mandrake 10.1
Official kernel!

With the standard kernel, you even can't power off because the nolapic
option of the kernel doesn't work. So you need a patch!

If you need to patch your kernel, you might be interested by some other
patches. That is the reason for I added not only the 
- nolapic patch but also
- alps touchpad full patch 
- the new sonypi patches
- and the win4lin patches for people using win4lin.

The patches can be found at http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard/sony/patches .
They are against 2.6.8.1 .

Among these patches, only the sonypi patches are very new. The aim is to
have a sonypi module suspending and resuming correctly.

Since Dmitry patches (see a former mail on this mailing list), Stelian
Pop, the maintainer of sonypi responded
(http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/10/25/154) and proposed a final version
(http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/10/28/87) which has been filed into the
official kernel 2.6.10.xx (signed by Linus).

In order to make this new module working with a 2.6.8.1 kernel, you need
in addition to the 8 patches:
 - a small patch which revert sonypi.c and sonypi.h back from 2.6.9 to
2.6.8 (i.e. useless for people using 2.6.9)
 - kfifo
 - roundup_pow_of_two  (a macro).

If you want an already patched kernel for Mandrake 10.1 Official you can
get one at http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard/rpm . I named it 15w4l instead
of 12 because I made version 13 and 14 in between (useless versions now)
and w4l means win4lin.

If you are using win4lin you also have to update your win4lin installer
from netraverse.com

If you don't need win4Lin, it doesn't harm to get this kernel and to
install it after your upgrade to Mandrake 10.1 Official.
But you can compile a new binary rpm instructions with the instructions
that I give on the webpage (and suppress win4lin and add hsfmodem etc.).

Unfortunately I don't know how to make a dkms rpms (dynamic kernel). 
This new facility let you add new modules (like for hsfmodem or win4lin)
by using a specific rpm (these binary rpm are spreading among Mandrake
community for non GPL modules).

I am able to suspend to disk with echo 4 >/proc/acpi/sleep and resume
correctly. I only need a small script for the clock and the usb module. 

I can suspend at work when the sony laptop is on its replicator and
resume at home without a replicator and with another network (I just
have to ask hibernate.conf to reload the network service in order to get
a new DHCP session).

No unloading anymore for sound, evdev, psmouse, sonypi etc.
It suspends in about 1 minute and resumes in about the same amount of
time.

I am trying to get a suspend script which could work with swsusp2 and
swsusp1. I don't use swsusp2 anymore but I like the
script /etc/hibernate/hibernate.conf .
I modified the swsusp scriptlet in order to work with swsusp1. But it is
ugly. I also tried to have bootsplash.

My hope is that these patches will be included in standard distros
without waiting for 2.6.10.

Sonypid and sonypidd or sonyxosd are working with the new sonypi modules
without any change.

Cheers,

Nicolas


I also updated the documentation on my page
http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard/sony


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-- 
Brouard Nicolas 
<>