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This is often referred to as a subnotebook/mini-laptop because of it's small size. It is stripped down, meaning it has no internal floppy or CD-ROM drives. And since it is originally shipped with Windows ME pre-installed it is abit tricky to get Linux onto it.

If you have a bootable USB (external) CD-ROM drive, or USB floppy drive, then there's no problem. Plug it in and boot your Linux installer.
If not, then your best option is to connect the Windows partition to a network and make WinME dos-bootable, like it says here: http://www.dewassoc.com/support/winme/real_dos.htm

then use loadlin from dos mode to start your linux installation. For me, with Debian, I did:
- copyed the Debian CD1 to c:/debian
- copyed the basesystem- and drivers-tars to c:/linux
- put the loadlin stuff in c:/linux
- rebooted to DOS (Shift F8?)
- switched to the c:\linux\ directory and ran install.bat
After the installation has loaded and displayed the Welcome to Debian installation screen:
- open new console: Alt-F2
mkdir /dos
mount /dev/hda1 /dos
- install the kernel modules and base system off the mounted /dos partition.

Oh, and I installed everything to /dev/hda2 as the disk comes partitioned with winME on /dev/hda1 and a non-used partition /dev/hda2.

Finally:
Installed LILO on /dev/hda2, not a MBR. Switch to console 2 and run fdisk /dev/hda -> make hda2 bootable instead of hda1.
Switch back to console 1 (installer) and select the reboot option.

Additionally:
To make all the features of this laptop work you need to compile a new kernel. Here are some kernel options you might want:
MemoryStick:
Enable SCSI
Enable USB Storage
Enable SD

FireWire:
Enable ieee1394
Enable ohci1394
Enable sbp2

JOG:
Enable Sony Programmable I/O Control Module (sonypi)
Manually add device /dev/sonypi: mknod /dev/sonypi c 10 63
the minor is 63 on the sony sr17k if sonypi is compiled into the kernel. Check dmesg if unsure.
Install sjog

Sound (Yamaha Corp YMF-754 DS-1E Audio Controller):
First enable OSS Sound Modules
Enable Yamaha FM Synth (YM3812)
Enable Yamaha YMF7xx PCI audio

Notes:
To make X pay attention to mousewheel events, you need to add this line to /etc/X11/XF86Config-4:
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

I also have it working with a 3com WLAN 11g PCMCIA card, using a kernel-patch from the prism54 project.

The jog on the Sonys are a true treasure. IMO the Linux sjog is even better than the original in Windows, regarding ease of use.

I gave it a 9 compatibility cause I heard the built in modem is some win-modem thing. I'm not using it so I don't know how/if it works.