Linux users of Sony Z1 series

[Brouard Nicolas <>]

Le jeudi 06 janvier 2005 à 11:23 +0100, WWW administrator a écrit : 
> machine:  (193.62.198.159)
> from: Melanie Courtot 
> <>
> subject: Linux on Sony
> 
> Bonjour,
> 
> 
> 
> Je viens d'acheter un vaio s2xp sur lequel j'ai installe Mandrake 10.1.
> 
> J'ai installe le noyau d'origine (pas d'acpi, divers pbs...).
By default Mandrake makes acpi off, but I am sure that with acpi=on you
will get the acpi features (but not with latest acpi patches).

My lilo.conf line is:
append="nolapic acpi=on resume=/dev/hda8 splash=silent"

The nolapic option should enable the sony to power off. But
unfortunately there is a kernel bug and you won't be able to boot with
this option (suppress it: but you won't power off!). The kernel patch is
applied only on 2.6.10 kernels but I applied it on a 2.6.8.1 kernel
(kernel-2.6.8.1.20nb1w4lmdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm).
It is my closest kernel to the official Mandrake 10.1 kernel. You might
use it. You will be able to suspend to disk with this kernel (patches
are given on the web site).

> Grace a votre noyau patche (2.6.9) j'arrive a booter par contre j'ai
> un delai d'environ 2min au chargement d'udev.

kernel-2.6.9.nb3mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
is the kernel which I am using. It is far from a future Mandrake kernel.
Patches, applied to the vanilla 2.6.9 kernel are also given on the site.

With this kernel, you will be able to suspend to ram (for example by
using the hibernate script hibernate-scripts-1.0.1-2mdk.i586.rpm (the
latest original script might work as well as Bernard posted today on
swsusp mailing list:
-------------- latest message from Bernard Blackham ---
Source tarball:
http://download.berlios.de/softwaresuspend/hibernate-script-1.03.tar.gz

RPMs:
http://download.berlios.de/softwaresuspend/hibernate-1.03-1.i386.rpm
http://download.berlios.de/softwaresuspend/hibernate-1.03-1.src.rpm

Debian packages are in Cameron's usual repository, and should be in
the main archive soon, when Erich uploads them.

Gentoo ebuilds should already be in portage thanks to Brix.

Bernard Blackham <bernard at blackham dot com dot au>
----end of excerpt --

Concerning the udev delay I have no idea. Insert a 
"set -x" (and set +x to stop debugging) in file /etc/rc.d/init.d/udev

and do a service udev restart to see where the problem is.
I am using udev-030-24mdk but I needed to change
/etc/udev/rules/01-devfs.rules when syncing my pilot (see the web site)

> Votre noyau 2.6.10 n'a pas ce probleme, auriez vous une idee?
> En effet je ne peux pas utiliser le 2.6.10 puisque le paquet 
> kernel-source correspondant est absent et je ne peux pas compiler les
> drivers wifi.Ou pourriez-vous uploader le kernel-source?

Kernel 2.6.10-rc2 binary rpm was there by mistake and I did never
comment on it and never published my patches (very few patches in fact).
The reason is that I COULDN'T suspend to ram with this version.
And, thus the window for a working RAM suspension/resuming is very
short: it only works with 2.6.9 kernel and acpi patches. I was also
interested by 2.6.10 in usb improvements (for suspension/resuming) but
in vain too.

But I am glad that the udev problem apparently disappeared with this
kernel version.

I uploaded the kernel sources of this "buggy" version and you can use
them.
In order to compile the "wifi" drivers, I think that you need the
sources (stripped might be enough) but you can use "dkms" binary rpm
that can be found at http://plf.zarb.org/~bgmilne/dkms/ (I know that
they work on 2.6.9 but I don't know about 2.6.10)

It is very very easy to use (just rpm -ivh).

Meanwhile 2.6.10 vanilla kernel is out now and you might try it: I mean
that you could compile it as a Mandrake kernel rpm. Here are some
advices:

Download for example my kernel.2.6.10.0.rc2.nb1mdk-1-1mdrk.src.rpm and
expand it (as a standard user NOT as root) by
rpm -ivh kernel.2.6.10.0.rc2.nb1mdk-1-1mdrk.src.rpm
then go to your ~/rpm/SPECS directory and look at the kernel.spec file
created. Edit it and change the version and the names of the vanilla
kernel.tar.gz that you can download from www.kernel.org (you might have
a look at the 2.6.9 kernel spec on my site because it corresponds to a
vanilla kernel and not to an rcX version which are patches to a former
kernel number). 

Go to the patch subdirectory and look at which patches you still need
(you won't need ipwxxx patches because dkms will probably work or
download ipwwxxx patches for 2.6.10). I suppose that latest acpi and usb
patches are already included in the kernel. 
Then do (still as a standard user on ~/rpm/SPECS)
rpmbuild -ba kernel-2.6.spec --without smp --without secure --without
enterprise \ 
  --without BOOT --without i586up1GB --without doc

and wait for a long time (45 minutes ?) (still not as root). Many of the
news options for this kernel will have to be added manually (y, n or m
for modules): do your best. But what is very ennoying is that even if
you rpmbuild without other kernels (you might be interested by i586up1GB
if the new laptop has more than 800Mb of RAM) you have to fill in the
module query, repeatedly for each of them. Only if you know where to
hard coded the answers to these options.

Usually I am using xemacs and I am opening a shel Alt-x shell to keep
the log and see how it is going on. But I don't compile on a Sony laptop
but on a 3.06GHZ desktop.

And tell us... The only advantage of doing a kernel rpm over a standard
kernel build (which is much more simple) is that other people can use it
(and remove it easily if non working). I am very happy that you found an
utility to this former work.

Cheers,

Nicolas Brouard

> 
> 
> Merci,
> 
> Melanie Courtot
> 
> 
> 
-- 
Brouard Nicolas 
<>