Debian on a Sony Vaio VGN-C1S/H

UPDATE (2008-07-22)

I don't have anymore this laptop. In the last few days both the wireless interface and the touchpad stopped working. The disk showed a few bad blocks and the bios had some quirks, while the cdrom stopped working a few month ago.
Basically it collapsed.
At the end, this laptop it was not worth the money I paid for it, the overall quality was in the low/medium end, and the price was in the very high end
. Now I'm the happy owner of a Lenovo T61; the quality is not comparable with the one of the Vaio. The keyboard is much more professional, the hardware is better, everything works with Gnu/Linux with little effort, and last but non least I've just paid for it now less money than I paid for the Vaio one year and a half ago.

Lately I installed Debian GNU/Linux (unstable) on a Sony Vaio VGN-C1S/H.

The main features are:

Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5500

1 GB of memory

100 GB Hitachi hard disk

13.3" Xblack screen.

A the very first boot (from the hd) Windows Media Center Edition starts, and then it asks to you to accept some EULAs.
I answered "I don't accept", the machine thus shutdown, and I installed the amd64 Debian release,booting from an USB key and wiping the Windows installation.
Note that the AMD64 release is both for AMD64 and EM64T processors,so it fits the Intel dual core 2 duo T5500 processor.

Update: note also that a few softwares are not available for the 64 bit version of Linux, such as the flash plugin for Firefox, and so on. If you need absolutely every software available, go with the standard i386 distribution.

lspci shows:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT
Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML
Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express
Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition
Audio Controller (rev 02)00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1
(rev 02)00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2
(rev 02)00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3
(rev 02)00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4
(rev 02)00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1
(rev 02)00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2
(rev 02)00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3
(rev 02)00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4
(rev 02)00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI
Controller (rev 02)00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge
(rev 02)00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller
(rev 02)00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial
ATA Storage Controller IDE (rev 02)00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev
02)02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8036 PCI-E Fast
Ethernet Controller (rev 13)06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network
Connection (rev 02)0a:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller0a:03.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE
1394 Host Controller0a:03.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card
Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)

Kernel

I installed 2.6.19-rc5, in order to have the most recent features, (the card reader, for example) after having tried 2.6.17 and 2.6.18.

ACPI

The acpi support is not complete: i.e. the battery shows only the charge remaining in percentage, but not the discharging rate.
Most important, there is no support for the Fn+{F1,F2,F3,...} key combination. Thus there is no way to switch to the external monitor, to change the brightness of the LCD, and so on. There is an experimental module for sony ACPI, but as far as I know it doesn't compile on a 64 bit environment.

Update: with kernel 2.6.17, I manage to compile the module sony_acpi. After loading the module, under /proc/acpi/sony two files appear, i.e.:

/proc/acpi/sony/brightness
/proc/acpi/sonybrightness_default

they containing a number in the range 1-8 showing the actual brightness of the LCD screen and the brightness at the boot. You can set both with, e.g, echo 5 > /proc/acpi/sony/brightness.

Graphics card

The laptop has a Intel i945GM graphics card, and the resolution of the screen is 1280x800. The cards is recognized by xorg and works nicely. There is no framebuffer device in the kernel, or better there is, but no way to make it works, so for now no nice logo at boot :). Probably again a 64 bit issue.

The relevant portion in xorg.conf states:

Section "Device"

   Identifier "Intel i945"

   Driver "i810"

   BusID "PCI:0:2:0"

   VideoRam 131072

   Option "UseFBDev" "true"

   Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"

EndSection

Update:

glxgears -info shows:

GL_RENDERER = Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GM 20050225

GL_VERSION = 1.3 Mesa 6.5.1

GL_VENDOR = Tungsten Graphics, Inc

while glxgears -iacknowledgethatthistoolisnotabenchmark shows:

6562 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1312.354 FPS

6596 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1319.132 FPS

6590 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1317.954 FPS

6542 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1308.358 FPS

6585 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1316.946 FPS

Touchpad

The xorg installation set the driver of the touchpad as synaptics. With this driver you have a half working touchpad (e.g., very slow movements, no middle button emulation, and so on). Indeed, the touchpad is a "AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint", as you can find out from:

cat /prop/bus/input/devices

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0008 Version=7321
N: Name="AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio4/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input3
H: Handlers=mouse2 event3
B: EV=f
B: KEY=420 70000 0 0 0 0
B: REL=3
B: ABS=1000003

note also the event number in bold.

You have to modify your/etc/X11/xorg.conf as follows:

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier "ALPS GlidePoint"
   Driver "synaptics"
   Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
   Option "Device" "/dev/input/event3"
   Option "Protocol" "event"
   Option "LeftEdge" "120"
   Option "RightEdge" "830"
   Option "TopEdge" "120"
   Option "BottomEdge" "650"
   Option "FingerLow" "14"
   Option "FingerHigh" "15"
   Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
   Option "MaxTapMove" "110"
   Option "ClickTime" "0"
   Option "EmulateMidButtonTime" "75"
   Option "VertScrollDelta" "10" 
   Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
   Option "MinSpeed" "0.45"
   Option "MaxSpeed" "0.75"
   Option "AccelFactor" "0.020"
   Option "EdgeMotionMinSpeed" "200"
   Option "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" "200"
   Option "UpDownScrolling" "1"
   Option "CircularScrolling" "0"
   Option "CircScrollDelta" "0.1"
   Option "CircScrollTrigger" "2"
   Option "SHMConfig" "true"
EndSection

note again the event number in bold in the Option Device.

I get these informations from here, here and here.

Update: I wrote an udev rule for the touchpad. The rules are slightly different from the ones shown in the pages linked above, thus I report my /etc/udev/alps.rules:

KERNEL=="event?", ATTRS{name}=="AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint", SYMLINK="input/alps"

You should also create the symlink

/etc/udev/rules.d/40_alps.rules
-> /etc/udev/alps.rules

Sound

The sound card is a HDA intel. The correspondent kernel module is snd_hda_intel. Everything works fine.

Network

The ethernet controller is a Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8036 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller, and the correspondent kernel module is sky2. Everything works fine.

Wireless

The wireless card is a ipw3945, supporting 802.11-abg. You should download the module from ipw3945.sourceforge.net and compile it by yourself. Note that it doesn't compile on a 2.6.19 kernel, but it does on a 2.6.18. If you manage to compile, it works well, even with kismet.

DVD/Cdrom

The laptop is equipped with a standard Pioneer DVD/Cdrom writer/reader. I had not problem with it.

Modem

The modem is a Conexant soft modem. You should download the hsf driver from Linuxant. Note that the free versions is restricted to 14.4k. For higher speeds you should license it. There is a 64 bit version that compiles and seems to work, but I tried it only once and it froze my laptop.

Update: The modem seems to work, but occasionally it causes a general segmentation fault, freezing the laptop. You should compile the driver from the source tarball, since the debian package on the Linuxant site is only for the i386 architecture. The 64 bit driver does not compile cleanly, since it uses in makefiles the x86_64 architecture, that is now obsoleted in favour of amd64, and also uses the obsolete debstd. You should substitute x86_64 with amd64 hither and thither in the sources.

Note that the hsf module replaces the standard sound kernel module snd-hda-intel,and that requires a kernel >=2.6.16.

Card Reader

The laptop has a Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader. There is an experimental module in the kernel. Once loaded it senses a card insertion, but I wasn't able to mount the card.

Express Card Reader

Not yet tested, but I suspect that everything works fine.

Suspend/Resume

Not yet tested, but I suspect that given the poor Sony records on releasing the technical specification, there will be some problems :-).

Update: The standard suspend-to-disk through sysfs works fine, while I was not able to suspend through uswsusp. The suspend-to-ram seems to work, but it has some issues with the graphics card.

Summary

I got a good general impression from this notebook. It's light (2.3 kg), and the fan is quite silent. Also the fan starts rarely, given the big air vent on the right side. You can find the laptop dimensions slightly bulky, expecially on the height side. It is slightly higher (a few millimeters) than the average laptop, I suppose for the heat dissipator on the cpu; instead the other two dimensions are the same of the average 13.3" laptop. Nonetheless, it is light and portable.

The battery, in power saving mode, stands for about 2.5h. It's not the 3.5h I had with my previous Asus, but acceptable. I think the Intel Core 2 duo is hungry for power. Infact from the air vent on the right side you can sense the warm air getting out, expecially if you use an external mouse with the right hand. If you cover accidentally the air vent you will see the temperatures of the cpu growing up firmly. On the other side, the cpu is very powerful.

The X-black screen is very clear, I appreciate it very much. The keyboard is a standard laptop keyboard, nothing special but usable. I find the usb ports position (on the right side, near the angle opposite to the screen) a little uncomfortable, as well as I find uncomfortable the small number (i.e. 2) of usb ports.

I think the notebook is a good trade-off between power and portability.

Feel free to write me at dela@linux.it or leave a comment here if you have some hints/corrections to what is stated above.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Last update: 2008-07-22