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VGN FS115B / FS215E (described below) / FS215B
VGN FS215M / FS215S / FS215Z
| Hardware Components | Status under Linux | Notes |
| Processor Intel Celeron M 370 1.5Ghz |
Works | No problems |
| Memory 512MB (2x256Mb modules) DDR SDRAM PC2700 Maximum RAM 1024Mb |
Works | No problems |
| Hard Disk Hitachi DK23FA-60 (60 GB Ultra ATA) |
Works | No problems |
| Chipset, PCI Bridge, IDE Controller Intel 82801 (ICH6 Family) |
Works | Compile kernel 'Intel PIIXn chipset support' This includes ICH support. |
| Trackpad Controller - Intel 82801 FBM LPC Pointing Device - Alps pointing device |
Works | No Problems |
| Graphics Integrated Intel i915GM. Upto 128Mb shared memory. |
Works | Needs :- Linux Kernel 2.6.12+ Xorg 6.8.99.10+ |
| Screen 15.4" X-Black Widescreen LCD 1280x800 |
Works | Text mode works fine. Graphics work well at 1280x800, see below. |
| CD / DVD Drive Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-K15 |
Works | CD, CD-R, CD-RW DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW |
| Internal Wired Network Card Intel PRO/100 VE Network Connection 10/100Mbps |
Works | No problems |
| Internal Wireless Network Card Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection 54Mbps. 802.11b/g |
Works | IPW2200BG Mini PCI card External driver module needed. |
| Internal Modem HDAUSIO Soft V92 Data Fax Modem with Smart CP |
Doesn't Work | This is a Windows software modem It will not work |
| PCMCIA / PC-Card slot Texas Instruments PCI7420 Integrated Flash Media |
Controller recognised, not tested | 1 slot |
| Sound Card Intel High Definition Audio |
Works | Needs :- Linux Kernel 2.6.12+ OR ALSA 1.0.9+ |
| USB High/Full/Low Speed 82801 family USB1 UHCI and USB2 EHCI controller |
Works | 3 ports. Compile kernel 'EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support' and 'UHCI HCD (most Intel and VIA) support' |
| Firewire Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE1394 Host Controller |
Controller recognised, not tested | 1 port. Compile kernel 'OHCI-1394 support' |
| Memory Stick Texas Instrument controller |
Don't know what controller to use, not tested | Should support Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick Duo |
| ACPI | Working | Battery status, etc |
I booted up from the install CD and used 'fdisk /dev/hda1' to remove the windows partitions. I then created 3 new Linux partitions (see below), everyone does partitions differently, but this is what I decided to do.
Partition Boot Start End Blocks Id System Size Use
/dev/hda1 1 3615 29037456 83 Linux 26.8Gb OS
/dev/hda2 3616 7230 29037487+ 83 Linux 26.8Gb Files
/dev/hda3 7231 7296 530145 82 Linux Swap 0.5Gb Swap
I installed Slackware 10.1 from the CDROM without any problems. I used the bare.i Kernel image from the CD and setup Lilo in the MBR as the boot manager before rebooting. As Slackware comes with a 2.4.29 kernel I decided to compile my own 2.6.11.9 kernel and altered /etc/lilo.conf to use my new version. Don't forget to run 'lilo' before rebooting. I also upgraded to xorg 6.8.2 from Slackware-Current.
Short Version
Use Kernel 2.6.12+ (compile in AGP/DRI support) and Xorg 6.8.99.10+ (use i810 driver, change /etc/X11/xorg.conf to 1280x800)
Long Version
This laptop has a 15.4" widescreen at a resolution of 1280x800. The video card is an integrated Intel i910GM.
I initially tried to get this resolution working with Linux Kernel 2.6.11.9 and Xorg 6.8.2 (Current versions at time of writing). I compiled in kernel support for i810 and i830 chipsets and tried the xorg driver which supports i910G, no luck... the i910GM is different to the i910G :-(.
I then tried the vesa driver which worked fine but only at 1024x768 resolution, this gave me a stretched desktop and slightly fuzzy fonts... not really good enough. Tried changing the appropriate line in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to 1280x800 resolution but xorg still insisted on staying in 1024x768 mode.
Quick search on google revealed that other people had had the same problem. Tried the 915resolution program to alter an unused Vesa mode to 1280x800 so the vesa driver could find it. Also set xorg.conf to use 1280x800 as the default resolution... Still at 1024x768 :-(.
I downloaded and tried the Intel driver but couldn't get it to work either :-(.
I downloaded a more up to date release candidate kernel (2.6.12-rc6) and found that DRI support for the i910GM card had been added. For AGP compile in kernel support for '/dev/agpgart (AGP Support)' and 'Intel 440LX/BX/GX, I8xx and E7x05 chipset support'. For DRI support compile in kernel support for 'Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support' and 'Intel 830M, 845G..... (i915 driver)'.
I downloaded a testing version of xorg server (6.8.99.10) from freedesktop.org snapshotsand found that i910GM support had been added to the i810 driver :-). Compiled the new xorg server (quite simple really, unpack the source, change into the xc directory, type 'make World', wait approx 45minutes until it's finished, type 'make install' then 'make install.doc').
Made a new xorg.conf with 'xorgconfig' choosing th i810 graphics driver. It worked straight away in 1024x768 mode, then change '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' to 1280x800 by hand and restarted xorg... Success at last at the native resolution of 1280x800. Then went back to xorg.conf and uncommented the DRI/GLX section to get OpenGL working. Running 'glxgears' and 'glxinfo' confirmed OpenGL was functioning.
I also configured my kernel for USB HID support so that I could plug in my Logitech USB mouse aswell. This worked straight away when plugged in with the same settings and at the same time as the touchpad. I added the ZAxisMapping line (see xorg.conf below) to use the scroll wheel.
A Linux Touchpad driver called 'synaptics' is available from here that also works with the ALPS Glidepoint. It allows you to control more touchpad parameters. I have not tried it.
The Kernel needs to be recompiled to be modular and include the below options.
Enable 'Loadable module support'
Enable 'Device Drivers'
'Generic Driver Options'
'Select only drivers thatdon't need compile-time external firmware'
'Prevent firmware from being built'
'Hotplug firmware loading support'
'Networking support'
'Wireless LAN drivers'
Enable 'Cryptographic API'
'ARC4 cipher algorithm'
Enable 'Library Routines'
'CRC-CCITT'
'CRC32'
'CRC32c'
Download the appropriate firmware and decompress with 'tar zxfv firmware-version.tgz', copy this into /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware.
Check that '/etc/hotplug/hotplug.agent' is pointing to the correct directory containing the firmware files.
Turn on hotplug (in slackware this done by typing 'chmod a+x rc.hotplug' in /etc/rc.d).
Download wirelesstools from the above site. Decompress as above and type 'make' to compile and 'make install' to install.
Download ipw2200-1.0.4.tgz (or later) and decompress with 'tar zxfv ipw2200-version.tgz', change into the ipw2200 directory and compile by typing 'make'.
NOTE : Driver compilation will fail on kernels > 2.6.12 as the kernel has changed subtly. The solution (found on the ipw2100 mailing list archives june 2005) is change '/ipw2200-1.0.4/net/ieee80211.h' at approximately line number 730 as below. Then type 'make' to compile.
/* ORIGINAL VERSION */
extern inline int is_multicast_ether_addr(const u8 *addr)
{
return ((addr[0] != 0xff) && (0x01 & addr[0]));
}
/* ALTERED VERSION */
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,12)
static inline int is_multicast_ether_addr(const u8 *addr)
{
return ((addr[0] != 0xff) && (0x01 & addr[0]));
}
#endif
On rebooting typing 'iwconfig'. You should see something like below, note the first line may read radio off if the wlan switch on the front of the computer is in the off position.
eth0 unassociated ESSID:off/any Nickname:"vaio"
Mode:Managed Channel=0 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
If the link is active you should see something like.
eth0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"Home" Nickname:"vaio"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Channel:13 Cell: 06:54:AC:E7:E0:4D
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=93/100 Signal level=-34 dBm Noise level=-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
If you are having problems check '/var/log/syslog' for any ipw2200 errors.
Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double buffer extension
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga" # don't initialise the DGA extension
EndSubSection
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "dri"
EndSection
Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts/TTF"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "kbd"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "Auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "VAIO"
HorizSync 31.5 - 64.3
VertRefresh 40-150
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel"
Driver "i810"
#VideoRam 8192
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "Intel"
Monitor "VAIO"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Simple Layout"
Screen "Screen 1"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
/proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 13
model name : Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz
stepping : 8
cpu MHz : 1496.567
cache size : 1024 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe nx
bogomips : 2940.92
lspci output
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2590 (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2592 (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2792 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Class 0403: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2668 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. I/O Controller Hub USB (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. I/O Controller Hub USB (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. I/O Controller Hub USB (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corp. I/O Controller Hub USB (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. I/O Controller Hub USB2 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BAM/CAM PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2641 (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. I/O Controller Hub PATA (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. I/O Controller Hub SMBus (rev 03)
06:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments: Unknown device ac8e
06:03.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments: Unknown device 802e
06:03.3 Unknown mass storage controller: Texas Instruments: Unknown device ac8f
06:04.0 Network controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 4220 (rev 05)
06:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 1068 (rev 03)