Sony Vaio VGN-S580

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Please improve it in any way that you see fit, and remove this notice {{Cleanup}} from the article. For tips on cleaning and formatting see Cleanup process


This article is part of the Hardware series.
Laptops • TV Tuner Cards • Wireless • Servers • Storage • Other Hardware • Motherboards • Related
Sony Vaio S4

Please feel free to contribute here -- Andrei


Contents

[edit] Introduction

This is a howto about gentoo linux on Sony Vaio VGN S580.

  • KNEFAS - most of the information from Sony Vaio VGN-S4 by Knefas is applicable here as well, therefore I list links, and differences that might be important;
  • KDE - is assumed as primary working environment, towards which directed this howto;
  • Essential parts - to reproduce this howto you need to install components listed in Software Summary.

[edit] Install

Follow these steps:

[edit] Specs

Various hardware information about Sony VGN S580; please check to see if your laptop is close:

[edit] Kernel

Code: cat /proc/version 
Linux version 2.6.15-suspend2-r8 (root@localhost) (gcc version 3.4.4 (Gentoo 3.4.4-r1, ssp-3.4.4-1.0, pie-8.7.8)) #1 Sun Apr 30 22:21:38 EEST 2006
  • as you can see it is all highly modularized, this was required for better suspend2 stability.

[edit] Xorg

[edit] Networking

Interaction of componens - ifplugd, udevd, wpa_supplicat, etc - depends on version of baselayout. For stable results I recommend 1.12.* such as baselayout-1.12.0_pre19-r2

[edit] Ethernet

Detailed hardware information for Intel PRO/100 Ethernet Controller.

I am using:

Reading:

[edit] Wireless

Detailed hardware information for Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG.

I am using:

Reading:

[edit] Bluetooth

Detailed hardware information for Cambridge Silicon Radio (10).

I am using S580 with K750:

  • kenel-provided modules: bluetooth,rfcomm,hidp,l2cap,hci_usb
  • bluez tools
  • kdebluetooth with minor fix

Reading:

[edit] Sound

[edit] Power Management

Various loosely - dependent power management components must be co-configured:

  • kacpid - kernel-space, kernel-provided patch, that:
  • ac, battery, button, processor - kernel provided acpi modules that
    • extend kacpid event functions
  • acpid - user-space daemon, that:
    • listens to kacpid
    • can process own events as configured in /etc/acpi/*
    • provides event socket for powersaved, hald, Xorg, etc to listen to
  • powersave - daemon that:
  • kpowersave - KDE daemon & gui that:
    • controls powersave
    • is integrated in KDE notebook control (kmilo suspend to disk, sonypi Fn-F12)
  • cpufreq_* - kernel provided modules that:
  • laptop_mode - kernel provided patch that:
    • permits to get/set disk usage patterns
    • can be controlled by powersave via laptop-mode-tools
  • nvclock - notebook control utility that
    • permits to control LCD brightness
    • is integrated in kvaio hack (kmilo, sonypi Fn-F5, Fn-F6, Fn-F7)


I use all these components in the following way:

  • acpid /etc/acpi/* events are not used
  • powersave /etc/powersave/* functions that are duplicates of hibernate (suspend2) are not used
  • cpufrequtils sets on boot ondemand cpufreq governor
  • kpowersave is configured for dpms to turn off LCD instead of screen saver

Reading:

[edit] Sleep (Suspend to Ram)

[edit] Hibernate (Suspend to Disk)

To make suspend2 work you esentially have to go through bunch of trial and error combinations of various versions of kernels, drivers, config parameters. My working combination is listed in Software Summary.

Recommended reading:

As of 2006-05-09 suspend2 almost works:

Currently unresolved issues:

As of 2006-06-03 - funny result: I did a parallel istall of Suse 10.1 and hibernate 100% works out of the box, on AC, on battery, from terminal, from X/KDE.

This Suse uses:

[edit] Video

[edit] Card

Detailed hardware information for nVidia GeForce Go 6400.

[edit] Driver

Recommended reading:

I suggest you use nVidia driver version 1.0.8756:

Remember you need "emerge nvidia-kernel" after each kernel build.

[edit] AGP

Recommended reading:

For suspend2 to work with nvidia

[edit] Notebook Control

[edit] KDE & Sony Laptops

Kde took some steps to better integrate with various laptops FN keys, special keys, LCD controls, etc; this includes for sony in general:

  • kernel-provided sonypi driver that knows about
    • FN keys, SN keys
    • wireless on/off swich
    • some 60+ various events in total
  • kvaio plugin for kmilo which processes sonypi events
  • kmilo kded service that dispatches kvaio events
  • corresponding contol applet: 
KDE Control Center -> System Administration -> Sony Vaio Laptop

[edit] Proprietary S580

Predictibly, in Sony Vaio VGN S580 hardware, there are few gotchas:

  • LCD brightness control is done via nvidia smartdimmer which requires nvclock 0.8 beta which in turn is not currently integrated in sonypi
  • most current version of alsa intel-hda sound driver maps speaker control to channel 7, not 0, that is expected by kmilo
  • wireless swich, s1 key is not mapped to anything, etc.
  • so above points result in your inability to control sound, brightness, etc - with FN, s1, wifi keys

[edit] Solution

To work around all this I recommend:

[edit] Unresolved

[edit] Software Summary

This is my (Andrei) working configuration as of 2006-05-09:

Note: "kernel provided ..." below means that if you use recommended kernel source and kernel config, the modules will be created by genkernel build process.

[edit] config

portage

kernel

hibernate

net

[edit] system

[edit] power

[edit] ethernet

[edit] wifi

[edit] bluetooth

[edit] notebook control

[edit] video

[edit] sound

[edit] desktop

[edit] firewall

[edit] Notes

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