Linux and Sony Vaio PCG-Z505SX
Installing RedHat Linux 6.0 on the Sony Vaio PCG-Z505SX
I recently purchased a Sony Vaio PCG-Z505SX and installed RedHat Linux
6.0 on it. I had to do a network install as the CDROM drive that I purchased
with the system connected via a PCMCIA card and RH6.0 requires the
supplemental disk when using PCMCIA (even though I was able to boot
off the CDROM). You can't use the floppy drive for the supplemental
disk, however, because the floppy is USB. I believe there is some
support for USB floppy drives under Linux, but I haven't tracked down
info yet. Anyway, the network install went fine using the built in
eepro100. The onboard NIC appears to be very sensitive to cabling
issues (I get many lost packets with some cables that work fine with
other systems). I used the System Recovery Disks that came with the
system to reinstall Winbloze 98 on a 3 gig partition (which 98 reports
as 6 gig, for some reason). The system dual boots fine. The recovery
disks did not blow out the MBR, which was nice.
Linux, XFree86, and the Neomagic 256AV
I used the XF86_SVGA server without problem. Here's a config snippit:
Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "unix/:-1"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
EndSection
Section "Keyboard"
Protocol "Standard"
AutoRepeat 500 5
LeftAlt Meta
RightAlt Meta
ScrollLock Compose
RightCtl Control
XkbKeycodes "xfree86"
XkbTypes "default"
XkbCompat "default"
XkbSymbols "us(pc101)"
XkbGeometry "pc"
XkbRules "xfree86"
XkbModel "pc101"
XkbLayout "us"
EndSection
Section "Pointer"
Protocol "PS/2"
Device "/dev/mouse"
Emulate3Buttons
Emulate3Timeout 50
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "My Monitor"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 30-64
VertRefresh 50-100
Modeline "1024x768" 65 1024 1032 1176 1344 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync
Modeline "1024x768" 75 1024 1048 1184 1328 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync
Modeline "1024x768" 85 1024 1032 1152 1360 768 784 787 823
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "My Video Card"
VendorName "Unknown"
BoardName "Unknown"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Driver "svga"
Device "My Video Card"
Monitor "My Monitor"
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection
Sound, Linux, and the Neomagic 256AV
There is a preliminary sound driver available for the brave. Check out:
Sony Z505S and Z505SX sound, and Linux.
Info from driver author:
The 256AV chip in the Z505 series is not SB compatible at all, and the
OSS drivers won't work. It uses a AC97-compatible mixer and a
proprietary non-DMA sound engine. (NeoMagic mentions this briefly on
their webpages about the 256AV, mainly that there are a couple of
different versions of the chip--one H/W compatible with the SB16, and
one that is compatible with the AC97 spec.)
Linux, Vaio Z505, and the internal modem
I believe it uses some sort of WinModem so it will not work with
Linux. Ever.
Linux, Vaio PCG-Z505SX, and APM
Suspend appears to work fine in X, although networking needs to be
restarted after coming out of suspend mode. You can do this in RH
by running this as root: /etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart
Linux and the Vaio PCG-Z505SX Miscellaneous Problems
- On boot, I often had kernel panics unless I did entered "linux
root=/dev/hda3" at the lilo prompt. I did have root=/dev/hda3 in
/etc/lilo.conf. I disabled the "memory stick" in the BIOS (F2 at boot)
which Linux saw as /dev/hdc. This appears to have fixed the problem.
- /proc/cpuinfo reports the CPU as a Celeron, even though the processor
is a PII. It may be some funky low-power PII built for laptops.
Upgrading to RedHat 7.x
- I am now using KRUD. The current
version of KRUD is RH7.1 based.
- Boot from floppy using bootnet.img (CD-ROM not booting...)
- Install via FTP
Linux and Sony Vaio PCG-Z505SX Links