Ubuntu 8.10 installed on a Sony Vaio P

January 26, 2009 16 Comments

sony-vaio-p-ubuntu
The Sony Vaio P was built to run Windows Vista right out of the box, so installing and running Windows 7 on it is a no-brainer. But what about Ubuntu? I’m sure a lot of users out there will want to see Ubuntu in action on the Vaio P, and find out what does or doesn’t work, so if you’re one of them, pay attention here and continue reading.

Overall, it is said that Ubuntu version 8.10 is snappier and faster, with startup time clocked in at 1:45 seconds and shutdown time pegged in at 15 seconds.

Here’s a quick bullet list on compatibility:

* The resolution came out to 1024 x 600 (vesa, this resolution looks perfect but too slow)
* Only the volume shortcut keys worked.
* Could not change brightness via hotkey or via OS.
* Bluetooth recognized.
* Sound is recognized and works.
* Wireless works. (Wifi driver “ath9” is in use).
* Resuming from suspend does not work.
* CPU throttling works.
* Battery status/life indicator works.
* Text easier to read on Ubuntu than Vista.

Bear in mind the above points if you ever want to install Ubuntu on your Sony Vaio P. Once you get your hands on one, of course.

Via Portable Monkey

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  • http://www.albuso.com Marco

    Perfect, end 3G connection?

  • Jishenaz

    Are there instructions to install Ubuntu on the Vaio P?

  • fab

    have you tried jaunty 9.04? it really supports way better newer platforms. netbooks seem to work better under jaunty than intrepid since most is recognized. furthermore jaunty is faster in boot and also in usage…personal opinion the latter

  • http://profile.to/KEYofR Brian K. White

    knoppix 6 and eeebuntu remix of 8.10 both set the correct native 1600×768 resolution.
    They both do it by merely allowing the receny xorg to do it automatically rather than by setting anything special in xorg.conf. However you can get regular ubuntu to do the same by overriding the monitor refresh rate detection in xorg.conf.

    sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

    find the Monitor section, looks similar to this:

    —-snip—-
    Section “Monitor”
    Identifier “Monitor0″
    ModelName “Generic Monitor”
    # HorizSync 28.0 – 96.0 # Warning: This may fry old Monitors
    # VertRefresh 50.0 – 60.0 # Extreme conservative. Will flicker. TFT default.
    EndSection
    —-snip—-

    coomment out any HorizSync and VertRefresh lines that aren’t already commented out,
    then add these two lines before EndSection:

    HorizSync 30 – 80
    VertRefresh 50 – 90

    Then reboot.

    xorg automatically runs at 1600×768 after that at least on xubuntu jaunty as of today.

    These are not specific or special numbers that actually reflect the limits of what the screen can do. They are merely wide enough to allow the automatically detected correct native 1600×768 (16 & 24 bit) to be used.

    I haven’t yet tracked down why xorg seems to be a lot slower in native xubuntu installed onto the 8G recovery partition on the hd than either knoppix 6, puppy linux, or eeebuntu from intrepid (8.10) all running from either usb sticks or from a 4G memorystick pro duo(*).

    hd access I expect to be different, especially for puppy which loads completely into ram, but xorg itself is pretty slow. Tolerable given the hardware, but other versions and even Vista all perform better on the same hardware.

    (*) You can’t boot directly from the ms slot, but once you have grub in the mbr and grub support files on the hd, in the former recovery partition most likely, then you can take just the kernel and initrd from say, knoppix, and put them with the other grub boot files, and the rest of the knoppix cd on the memorystick, and add a stanza in menu.lst to tell grub to load the knoppix kernel and initrd, and then init in knoppix’s inird will find the knoppix image and user-persistent-data image on the memorystick and use it automatically. So you can have knoppix always available as a boot option without having to use a seperate usb stick or having to install more than a couple megs on the hd.

    Also, as long as you leave Vistas ntfs filesystem alone the InstantON/XMB feature still works after installing linux over the recovery partition. Or at least as long as there is an NTFS partition and filesystem with c:\InstantON and c:\Users\Public directories & contents saved from the original install.

  • RunningSwimmingMan

    Any luck lately getting display brightness controls, camera, or any function keys…?

    I’m mostly concerned about getting some kind of work-around for brightness….
    Because this will kill even the longest lasting of batteries in no time…

    On my other vaio (this years model) I was able to control brightness via “Xrandr”,
    but with 9.04 it appears to be under gnome-utils or something…. Doesn’t seem to work…

    Thanks…

  • http://www.richardwalker.com.au Richard

    I’ve got it working with 3D acceleration and the psb driver in 9.04 (Jaunty). Drop by my site for a write-up on it, it works really well and I’ve desktop effects working too…. haven’t gotten camera, brightness, or function keys (except volume) working yet tho, which kinda sucks.

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    Thank you this nice post

  • http://www.sonyvaIovgn.net Sony Vaio VGN

    I like the new features of ubuntu8.10 and I'll install in my notebook.
    Thanks for this information.

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    It's great to get the concise, very direct list of what various software out there is able to do. Some try to give you the run around and never get to the point. We live in the information age and want the short and sweet. Great job of doing just that.

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    I Love ubuntu..)

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    I like this blog.
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    what is ubuntu?!

  • http://www.bloggersfordollars.com make money blogging

    TO me things just seem to be getting to complicated. I am having a difficult time keeping up with all the updates and new versions.

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    Ubuntu version 8.10 is snappier and faster, with startup time clocked in at 1:45 seconds!!


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