Debian Linux on a Sony Vaio Z1XMP

There are some other pages out there which describe the installation of Linux on a Sony/Centrino Laptop. Some of them I’ve used are

• Debian GNU/Linux on Sony Vaio PCG-Z1SP
• SuSE Linux 9.0 on the Sony Z1XMP
• How to install GNU/Linux on a Sony Z1?
• Linux Sony Z1 Mailing list
• TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, notebooks, PDAs and mobile phones
• WPA auf Centrino-Notebook

So, let’s have a look at the Hardware first:

Kernel
I’m currently using 2.6.11.11 with all acpi and cpufreq-features for centrino enabled. But also in this Kernel you’ll still have to unset CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC, if you want having your system to power off properly. You can grab my .config at the end of this text. With the cpufreqd and the centrino-speedstep and poversave-governor from the kernel you have a broad range to influence the actual speed of your processor. /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ is your friend here (or see the scripts below). The modules to load for the whole system can also be found at the end.

X11
X11 with full resoultion of the display (1400x1050) was working out of the box using the radeon driver. If you want to control the vga-out and being able to en-/disable the backlight, have a look at radeontool. This allows you to control those parameters. Also the lightwatch.pl - script of this site is quite useful: if you use xscreensaver, this will really blank your screen (and thus save power) if a screensaver is running.
Another useful thing is the control of the LCD brightness. This can be done with having the sonypi module enabled in the kernel and have a look at How to install GNU/Linux on a Sony Z1?. You’ll need the sonypid and spiccontrol (which comes with debian). Once the sonypi kernel module is loaded, look with dmesg what minor number your sonypi has and then do a mknod /dev/sonypi c 10 250, assuming 250 would be the minor number. If you now want to assign the function keys of your keyboard to some system events, use sonypidd. You can find my slightly modified version with some more functions attached.
The only thing I didn’t get working until now (but I also haven’t tried yet) is DRI/ OpenGL support for the graphics.

Wireless
is working fine with the ipw2200 driver. Just take the module, compile and install it and put the firmware in place. With the latest version even monitor mode should work although I haven’t had the time to test it. Just one note: If you should encounter some trouble not being able to reach your Acces Point, turn the wireless switch from "On" to "Off" wait some seconds and turn it on again. But this happens rarely.

Suspend to RAM
is also working fine when you use the plain vga text console (no framebuffer, vga=normal in lilo.conf), stop mysql before suspend and rmmoding ehci_hcd. Then you can simply do an echo mem > /sys/power/state and you’re done. Pressing some key or the power switch should then bring your laptop back to life. It might happen that you’ll have to dis- and enable your network card after resuming but, well. You might also want not to use your CD-ROM in ide-scsi mode as it will then not working any more after a resume (not working means in this case: it will hang the whole laptop)

Touchpad
This didn’t work well until Kernel 2.6.11. With the alps-patches in the kernel now and having xfree86-driver-synaptics installed the touchpad is now also working with scrolling. All neccessary modifications for the XFree86 config file are described in /usr/share/doc/xfree86-driver-synaptics/README.alps.