I have not used linux in a couple years. The last time I did was RedHat back in the college days. I do a little C++ and a little LISP but my bread and butter (literally) is LabVIEW.

I have checked through the the threads in the laptop forum and did not find anyone talking about the new Z from Sony. I realize that his is a new-ish model and may not have been tested yet. But before I make a decision on which distro to dive in with, I thought it prudent to check and see if there are any thoughts.

So I would appreciate any hints, tips, tricks or warnings.

I would consider myself a, very rusty, moderately experienced linux user.

I was thinking Slackware but that may be a bit ambitious. I saw mention of Arch? which I had never heard of but will look into.

I think this post has gotten a bit long, so I will say adieu.

A quick and easy check for compatibility would be to download and burn a LiveCD and boot it up. You should be able to tell pretty quick if it's going to play nice with your hardware.

If you do, run lspci and post the output here and perhaps we can help you with any potential hardware issues.

As for which distro, pretty much any modern distro should work for you. I'm pretty partial to Slackware, but honestly you can just pick one and go with it.

Thanks for the input and will do.

UPDATE:

I downloaded Knoppix 5.1.1 and Slack (install) the MD5s were good, burnt the images to DVD, and tried to boot pix.

It starts, makes the ramdisk, loads the kernel, and finds my processors correctly.

I'm thinkin "yeay its gonna be smooth..."

A few lines later Starting PCMCIA ...

And we grind to a halt. Had to pull the plug.

Repeat with identical results. Strangely a different number for the physical memory found...

Bad burn???

Any thoughts???

Whats the word on knoppix 5.1.1???

Just to let you know i've got a big problem with my vgn-sr90s. I reckon this is due to its Intel chipset gm45. I wonder what chipset your machine uses.

Yo

The chipset is ICH9

I can't understand your idea?

Linux Archive

My idea was to provide the chipset in use on my machine.

Perhaps I misunderstood the question.

you can always try that dvd you burned on another computer to see if it works.

Debian Development

I am fairly cirin that the disk is bad

My wife bought me these dvds because they were on clearance

Ive used about 7 with only 1 know to be good after burning

Get what you pay for. And now Im stuck with a hack version of xp that sony provided witch doesnt support all the hardware

A manufacturer should ALWAYS provide a restore disk!!!

Try editing the grub boot line and delete the splash keyword. If that doesn't work add noapic and try. If that still doesn't work then noacpi, that should allow it to boot.

Something weird happened after 2.6.24., Any type of graphics during boot locks my VGN up.

Dood there is really no difference in the distro's KDE/GNOME... Buntu's have that down pat.

I was trying a live cd so I could tell what the problems might be.

But Ive been working 60+ hrs, so I havent had time to "play".

N-E-Ways... Buntu huh, aight ill burn a live and give it a try

My Z is a pretty nice machine, cant wait to get its equal in an OS.