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Thread: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

  1. #1
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    Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    I haven't found many people on the internet trying to install linux on the VPC S12 C7E laptop and so I thought that I'd post my experience. If you are a beginner or intermediate Ubuntu user I'd advice the purchase of a different laptop as so far this has proved to be a much more frustrating experience than I am used to.

    This was purchased from a store with a standard specification. It has InteCore i3 processor, Nvidia GeForce 310M GPU, 6GB memory, 1366x768 LCD screen, and a built in optical disk.

    Due to the memory size I have tried to install 64 bit versions. The only features which have worked automatically are the keyboard and the wifi.

    After booting the disk the screen goes blank. This seems to be common with other Vaios and replacing 'quiet' and 'no-splash' with 'nomodeset' seems to fix this problem. After installing to disk I added these to Grub so that I can see the screen after booting. Adding 'i8042.nopnp' makes the touch pad work as well.

    The default video driver wouldn't seem to work at the native resolution of the monitor. I installed the nvidia binary driver, which was not successful to start with. It seems that there is some problem with the edid data coming from the LCD panel. I found a solution to this in another post. Using a Windows tool I extracted the edid data into a file called edid.bin and then added
    Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/edid.bin"
    to my xorg.conf file. I think that there is a linux tool to extract this data, but I found that out later. I have no control over the screen brightness. I have tried many of the fixes suggested in the forums.

    Initially there was no sound from the internal speakers and I struggled with a few different solutions. Eventually I downloaded the latest ALSA source and compiled it. Since then everything has been working well - except the internal microphone. The function key volume controls work.

    I have not managed to get the VGA or HDMI ports to work. I have tried a few suggestions, but I think that this is a problem which should be easy to fix. Many people with a similar laptops had the same problem with the edid data found that external monitors worked well.
    By following http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1562873 I have managed to get VGA and HDMI out working, but without sound.
    Code:
     Option         "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP-0,DFP-1,CRT"
    The above line is the key change in my xorg.conf.

    I think that the intel i3 has on board graphics. If it has perhaps it is possible to use instead of the nvidia chip to reduce power consumption. I have not found any reference to this anywhere. The power consumption under Windows seems to better, but that may in part be due to lower screen brightness, or it may be circumstantial as I have not used windows much. FYI it is just under 3 hours under Ubuntu when used as a work processor.

    I have tried to get the WWAN working, but I have not managed to so far.

    To sum up the following features (which are important to me) are not yet working as I would like :-
    internal microphone; screen brightness; WWAN; and battery life.

    Other features such as the finger print reader and S400 and bluetooth I have not tried (and probably won't).

    I will try to post the links to some of the pages that helped me get this far, and I will be most grateful for any suggestions which help with the above problems.
    Last edited by Luca1729; September 20th, 2010 at 09:24 PM. Reason: Sound over HDMI now working

  2. #2
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    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    My xorg.conf file is now :-

    Code:
    # nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
    # nvidia-settings:  version 1.0  (buildd@yellow)  Fri Apr  9 11:51:21 UTC 2010
    
    # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
    # nvidia-xconfig:  version 256.35  (buildmeister@builder97.nvidia.com)  Wed Jun 
    16 19:15:05 PDT 2010
    
    Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen        "Default Screen" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        Option         "Xinerama" "0"
    EndSection
    
    Section "InputDevice"
    
        # generated from default
        Identifier     "Keyboard0"
        Driver         "keyboard"
    EndSection
    
    Section "InputDevice"
    
        # generated from default
        Identifier     "Mouse0"
        Driver         "mouse"
        Option         "Protocol" "auto"
        Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
        Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
    EndSection
    
    Section "Device"
        Identifier     "Device0"
        Driver         "nvidia"
        VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
        BoardName      "GeForce 310M"
    EndSection
    
    Section "Screen"
        Identifier     "Default Screen"
        Device         "Device0"
        Option         "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP-0,DFP-1,CRT"
        Option         "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/edid.bin"
        SubSection     "Display"
        EndSubSection
    EndSection
    
    Section "Screen"
        Identifier     "Screen0"
        Device         "Device0"
        Monitor        "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection     "Display"
            Depth       24
        EndSubSection
    EndSection
    
    Section "Screen"
        Identifier     "Screen0"
        Device         "Device0"
        Monitor        "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection     "Display"
            Depth       24
        EndSubSection
    EndSection

  3. #3
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    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Fix for the lack of sound over HDMI provided by
    http://code.google.com/p/vaio-f11-li...s/detail?id=11

    I added the line
    options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=0xffff,0xfff2
    to /etc/modprobe.d//alsa-base.conf

  4. #4

    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Sorry if it may be ambiguous, but I LOVE YOU!! It was since this August that I tried to get my hdmi running on my VPCS12C5E, and I never found anything!!

    Now your posts make me see the light outside the tunnel.. When I'll be at home I'll try if it works, and I'll post here the result!

    Many thanks again for the help!

  5. #5

    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Quote Originally Posted by Luca1729 View Post

    To sum up the following features (which are important to me) are not yet working as I would like :-
    internal microphone; screen brightness; WWAN; and battery life.

    Other features such as the finger print reader and S400 and bluetooth I have not tried (and probably won't).
    If you are still searching for a solution, this worked for my laptop (regarding screen brigthness):

    http://shiba89.wordpress.com/2010/10...-ubuntu-10-04/

    For the microphone I found a solution on LinuxQualityHelp (an italian forum); you can see the thread here:
    http://www.linuxqualityhelp.it/suppo...3fca93abe171f3
    I imagine that you don't know italian, however resuming all that thread at this post ( http://www.linuxqualityhelp.it/suppo...tart=20#p72117 ) guiodic gave me these two debian archives. I installed the archive for my architecture (I use a 32bit with kernel pae), and it works!

    No solution for the switch between graphic cards.

    The bluetooth works fine, even if it's not possible to switch on or off directly in ubuntu (but I have to boot with windows and do it from windows).

  6. #6
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    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Thank you. I'll give those two a go later today.

  7. #7
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    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Hi Luca,

    Thanks for this post, you're just about the only source of information for ubuntu installation on this laptop...

    You see, I only just purchased it as an upgrade to my HP dv3500 and I had both Ubuntu 10.10 and Vista on that.

    Due to previous experience installing and configuring Ubuntu, I thought it would be best to hover up as much info online as possible.

    Do you mind sending me a blow by blow account of your experience pls? Especially regarding the blank monitor issue.

    Any help will be much appreciated as while Windows 7 looks and 'feels' good, I can't fathom giving away all that Ubuntu goodness.

    Thanks...

  8. #8
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    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Hi i_waya,

    My post is for Ubuntu 10.04, I haven't tried 10.10 yet it is possible that some of the problems I encountered have been fixed.

    The blank screen issue I refer to is common to many Vaio users. This occurs during installation (and after). To fix this early on in booting the live CD edit the boot options and replace 'quiet' and 'no-splash' with 'nomodeset'. At the same time you will need to add 'i8042.nopnp' to make the touch pad work.

    You should then be able to boot and run the Live CD. After installing to disk I added these to Grub.

    Most of the information I used I got from posts about the Z12 which has much hardware in common with the S12.

  9. #9
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    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Thanks alot for the response Luca, I've successfully installed Ubuntu 10.10, however even though the touchpad is working and the monitor isn't blank, my current pain (major) is installing and setting up the driver for Nvidia. I installed the proprietary one off Ubuntu, but got the blank screen despite changes to Grub.

    Apologies if this is too much hassle, however can you describe how you were able to make the changes required to get Nvidia working properly. Any links for installing on a vaio z12 will be helpful as well....

    Thanks alot

  10. #10
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    Re: Experience installing Ubuntu 10.04 on Vaio VPCS12C7E

    Having used the laptop in this configuration for over a year I have just upgraded to 11.10 (and currently slightly regret so doing). I had previously tried a live version of 11.04 and that seemed to work much better out of the box than my version.

    Anyway, I upgraded using update manager (going via 10.10 and 11.04) and most things work okay. The microphone works better than before, but has crackles on it. I will still have to maintain my dual boot (to windows) to use Skype.

    However HDMI has stopped working - neither sound nor video. I haven't managed to correct this. It is possible that my old hacks to get it working on 10.04 are interfering. I will try and refresh this.

    Also strangely the keyboard back light has stopped working. The good news about this is that it means it is controllable by the OS and so it should be possible to turn it off when power is the primary concern. The following link suggested a fix which enables it to be turned on, but this needs to be entered each logon.
    http://askubuntu.com/questions/68423...vaio-vpcf121fx

    Whenever the laptop suspends, or locks out the screen to screen saver, the keypad no longer works on restart.

    Very frustrating.
    Last edited by Luca1729; October 29th, 2011 at 04:55 PM. Reason: Forgot to paste the url

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