I've got my new VAIO VGN-A197VP some time ago. To sum it up: I really like this display :-)
Device | Model | Status |
---|---|---|
CPU | Intel Pentium M 735 1.7 GHz | Working inclusive CPU throttling. |
RAM | 512 MB DDR SDRAM | |
HDD | 80 GB Hitachi IC25N080ATMR04-0 | Working, of course. For now I'm using some conservative settings using hdparm. |
LCD | 17.0'' WUXGA TFT 1920x1200 | Working |
Graphics Card | ATI Technologies RV350 (Mobility Radeon 9600 M10) 64MB VRAM | Working using the XFree86 radeon driver in XFree86 Release 4.4. There's also a driver from ATI which I haven't tried. |
Sound | Intel 82801DB (ICH4) AC'97 Audio Controller (w/ Realtek ALC203) | Working using the Alsa intel8x0 driver |
Networking | Intel 82541GI/PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller | Working using the e1000 driver. |
DVD+-RW | SONY DVD RW DW-U55A | Working, see below |
Modem | Conexant HSF Softmodem connected to Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller | Unstable There's a commercial driver available at linuxant.com. A bug in this driver causes the system to freeze (reboot required) after using the modem for about 30-60 minutes. This is known for several months now, but still has not been fixed. |
Wireless LAN | Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG | Working using ndiswrapper, see below |
Bluetooth | Alps Electric (idProduct 3007?) | Working (operates as an USB device) |
USB | Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB 2.0 EHCI Controller, NEC USB 2.0 Controller | Working using the ehci-hcd driver. |
Memory-Stick Reader | Unknown. Connected to a Texas Instruments PCI7420/PCI7620 Dual Socket CardBus and Smart Card Controler w/ 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Controller | Not working, but there's a data sheet available on the web. So maybe some nice guy will implement a device driver in the future... |
CardBus | Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller | Working using the yenta_socket driver. |
Firewire | Texas Instruments PCI7x20 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Controller | Working using the ohci1394 driver. |
Soft-buttons | Mostly not working. See below. | |
Brightness sensor | Not working |
# cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU1/throttling state count: 8 active state: T0 states: *T0: 00% T1: 12% T2: 25% T3: 37% T4: 50% T5: 62% T6: 75% T7: 87%The active state can be changed by something like
# echo 7 > /proc/acpi/processor/CPU1/throttlingThere's also a kernel option (CONFIG_CPU_FREQ) that allows CPU clock scaling. The right driver is speedstep-centrino (CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO) but as of kernel 2.6.8.1 this CPU is not supported:
speedstep-centrino: found unsupported CPU with Enhanced SpeedStepAnother driver that uses ACPI (CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ) causes the kernel to Oops.
# hdparm /dev/hda /dev/hda: multcount = 0 (off) IO_support = 3 (32-bit w/sync) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 256 (on) geometry = 16383/255/63, sectors = 156301488, start = 0
ipw2200 is still under development and there are more success reports.
ndiswrapper requires Windows drivers to work. I took the driver (named w22n51.sys and the corresponding inf file w22n51.inf) from Windows XP shipped with this laptop. Version 0.9 of ndiswrapper locks my keyboard, this is fixed in current (as of writing this) v0.10. Just compile and install the driver and use the supplied command line tool to register the Windows driver (ndiswrapper -i w22n51.inf). As with ipw2200 I haven't tried encryption yet.
I haven't tried the linuxant.com wrapper yet and probably will not. Ndiswrapper is working fine. I'll switch to ipw2200 within the next days. But feedback is welcome here!
There's another soft-button: one that should eject the CD/DVD. This one is supported by the sonypi device driver and generates the same event as Fn-E does. (There's also a (really tiny) button that ejects the CD/DVD without any software support).
For now I'm masking some event types using mask=0x000C (as an option to sonypi).
This is what I'm using to get the brightness (Fn-F5, Fn-F6), video out (Fn-F7), suspend to disk (Fn-F12) and eject (Fn-E) keys to work:-