Hi,

I was wondering what people's opinions were on the best distribution for a Sony VAIO laptop (specifically the GRT170). I recently installed RedHat 9 but it doesn't work very well (no sound, no power management, USB doesn't work, performance is slow and clunky at times, etc.). I've heard that SuSe works quite well on the VAIO; does anyone have any experience with this? My machine specs are:

P4 2.8 GHz
512 MB RAM
DVD+-R/RW
USB 2.0, Firewire
Built-in wireless LAN
NVIDIA GeForce FX graphics card; 64 MB (the drivers for this are pain in the @$$ across all distributions, I know)

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Sabir
P.S. I'm a newbie.

I've got a PCG-F807K, which is quite an old model [almost 3 years old now]. I run Slackware on it, which seems to work pretty damn well. It also seems to have the best support for my PCMICA ethernet card, all the other distros have problems with buffer overflows, I'm not sure why that is. Anyway, I would recommend slackware to you

I have two Vaios and have been a Linux user since the 0.9x kernel days.
Started on Slackware.
Used Redhat from 6x to 7.3. Hate RH 8x and 9x
Ok with Debian, though reminiscent of the "early days" in getting everything to work.
I've tried over 20 different distros over the years.
Now trying Suse 8.2 Pro. Slick interface and tools.
My Vaio pcg-gr390 installed redhat 7.3 smoother than any version of windows would. There isn't very good driver support for it under anything except XP home, and I'd rather be hit by a Mac truck than work on crucial client work using that OS. Redhat installed beautifully. The only gotcha was the APM and screen. By adding the sonypi utils, and making sure the kernel (already) had sonpi support, that was resolved in a few minutes.
I just picked up this Vaio PCG-grt170. Been drooling all over the 16.1" screen! :-) But about pulling my hair out trying to get it fully functional under Linux.
Started with Debian, but too much pain, so quit after a few hours.
Next Redhat 7.3. Almost no drivers worked.
Since I had this SuSe CD sitting around paid for, I figured I'd try it.
It installed the easiest, but the following did NOT work with during the install and have to be addressed afterwards:
Detected video for nvidia drivers will blank out and even potentially lock up the system.
Built-in wireless detects butr refuses to load the drivers/module.
Onboard modem not recognized at all.
No DVD playing capability due to the wonderful "patent restrictions" and other bulbous shiittake mushroom legal crap going on these days.
So, I booted into "safe mode" (init 3) command line.
Ran xf86config (text version) and selected VESA Generic and highest res option for screen without going into custom (option 10 I think).
That works well enough at 1280x1024. I found a site where the owner managed to get it to 1400x1050, I have to do that after I'm into X, since I don't have the current frequency ranges for this laptop yet.
I downloaded the nvidia drivers and followed the directions and it supposedly installs without errors. But when I try to run SaX2 as per directions it blanks out the screen and eventually either comes back to command line or hangs the system. Apparently I'm not the only one having this problem and it may require an updated XFree86 compilation newer than what is currently available from teh Suse updates sites which I ran and went through the nvidia steps again to no avail.
Anyone have any luck getting those to work?
I try to patch the orinoco_pci.c with the patch from another site but it keeps failing 1 out of 1 hunks with out any clear reason why, so no wireless still.
Haven't started to tackle the modem or dvd issues yet. DVD is probably just the usual downloads and addons needed. Modem might be resolved by the linmodem addons I used under redhat, don't know for sure yet.
The ethernet works fine, so I'm limping along on that and in VESA mode, sound works out of the box just fine.
This is such a new laptop there isn't much on the web yet.
Anyone had any more luck than I have with this grt170?
Hope that helped give you some useful insight.

Managed to get the video working at last!
The key was the following entries in XF86Config:
Option "FlatPanel"
Option "CrtcNumber" "1"
In the Nvidia driver section.
Here's what mine looks like:
<snip>
Section "Monitor"
Option "CalcAlgorithm" "CheckDesktopGeometry"
DisplaySize 320 240
HorizSync 28-95
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
ModelName "1400x1050@60HZ"
Option "DPMS"
VendorName "--> LCD"
VertRefresh 40-62
UseModes "Modes[0]"
EndSection


Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes[0]"
Modeline "1280x1024" 105.64 1280 1296 1552 1736 1024 1024 1034 1070
Modeline "1152x864" 80.14 1152 1168 1384 1568 864 864 872 902
Modeline "1024x768" 63.23 1024 1040 1216 1400 768 768 775 802
Modeline "800x600" 38.69 800 816 928 1072 600 600 605 626
Modeline "640x480" 24.76 640 656 720 864 480 480 484 501
EndSection


Section "Screen"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1400x1050"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
Device "Device[0]"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
EndSection
Section "Device"
BoardName "0x031a"
BusID "1:0:0"
Driver "nv"
Identifier "Device[0]"
VendorName "NVidia"
Option "FlatPanel"
Option "CrtcNumber" "0"
EndSection
</snip>

This is how I came to this.
Suse 8.2 with updates.
Booted into Linux "Safe" mode, console login.
As root ran xf86config (text version).
Configured VESA driver at 1280x1024x60hz
Saved and booted into X.
Ran SaX2. Configured monitor at LCD1400x1050@60hz
Saved (avoided running test in this mode).
Exited X.
went to /etc/X11
Vi'd XF86Config
Added those above mentioned "options" for the nv driver section.
Saved.
Started X.
Jumped up and down with joy.
:-)
Be careful about not running SaX2 afterwards since it doesn't put in those options on it's own.
Now to tackle:
builtin in WiFI.
DVD playing/burning
Builtin winmodem
I'm posting future with this GRT170 Vaior progress at
www.hawkes-haven.com
as well as my successes with the other vaio GR390.

I have a vaio pcg-k115b, which is quite well supported by suse 9.1. I did not get the modem to work, but what bugs me more is the sonypi driver: There are all kinds of nice configuration options, but suse 9.1 seems not to load the sonypi-driver...
can anyone help??
mattis

I had a PCG-FX801 running RedHat 9 perfectly.

I have a Sony PCG-GRZ630 and Slackware runs as if it has been made for it . Even windows doesn't have the proper graphics drivers and it gets heated when I play movies or games. But no problem with Slack.

Try going through this page

What kernel are you using. Did you compile the module in the kernel. For me, the module works both with kernel 2.4 and 2.6.